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Subsections on this page: Related topics on other nearby pages: Overview and recap articles: 'Dirty cops': FBI leaves trail of lies, leaks, lapses in Trump era. The FBI already has amassed a record of misconduct by top officials leading up to Monday, when the Justice Department inspector general is scheduled to release conclusions on whether agents also abused the bureau's intrusive wiretapping powers. To date, four inspector general reports and internal Justice Department documents have found senior FBI officials guilty of lying, insubordination, security violations, mishandling confidential material and personal biases against President Trump. Rep. Devin Nunes, the California Republican who discovered that the FBI had used a Democratic Party-financed dossier as evidence, often refers to bureau leaders as "dirty cops." Lisa Page, a former FBI senior counsel and one of those singled out, portrayed herself this week as an innocent victim of FBI betrayal. Meanwhile, news media stories have downplayed the significance of the upcoming inspector general's report on how the FBI spied on the Trump campaign through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and other means. Michael Flynn's Lawyer: Top FBI Officials Conspired To Entrap Ex-Trump National Security Adviser. The FBI has become a snake pit. The nation's largest domestic intelligence and law enforcement body, a beacon for impartial, professional, and expert investigative work now has a muddied reputation because some people didn't like the winner of the 2016 election. Yes, disgraced FBI Agent Peter Strzok who was fired for sending tens of thousands of anti-Trump texts to former bureau lawyer Lisa Page, with whom he was having an extramarital affair, embarrassed the agency. It also didn't help that this man reportedly signed off on the counterintelligence probe that became the investigation spearheaded by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller. He was also a key person in the FBI's analysis of Hillary Clinton's email server. There are discussions with also fired Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe about an insurance policy, which many have alleged is the infamous Trump dossier, compiled by ex-MI6 spy Christopher Steele and financed by the Clinton campaign and the Democrats. This political opposition research file, which appears to be unverified, was used to secure spy warrants against Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign. Lindsey Graham: There Is Proof Of Systematic Corruption At Highest Level of DOJ and FBI. "Here's what we're looking at: Systematic corruption at the highest level of the Department of Justice and the FBI against President Trump and in favor of Hillary Clinton," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News. Host Sean Hannity then asked Graham whether officials "lied purposefully" on a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant application to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The Obama Brennan Mueller Hoax: Blaming Russian espionage on Trump. The fact is that Russian espionage is an ongoing occurrence. It has been going on for 100 years. It happens on a constant basis on multiple levels. To conflate actions of Russian espionage with the Presidential campaign of the Republican nominee is not just unprecedented and reckless. It is a stupefying abuse of power and authority. It's simply a leap of uncalculated madness. An anti-constitutional putsch against the electorate. Yet that is at the heart of the Obama Brennan Mueller hoax and the attempted coup against Donald Trump. The FBI Tragedy: Elites above the Law. One of the media and beltway orthodoxies we constantly hear is that just a few bad apples under James Comey at the FBI explain why so many FBI elites have been fired, resigned, reassigned, demoted, or retired — or just left for unexplained reasons. The list is long and includes director James Comey himself, deputy director Andrew McCabe, counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, attorney Lisa Page, chief of staff James Rybicki, general counsel James Baker, assistant director for public affairs Mike Kortan, Comey's special assistant Josh Campbell, executive assistant director James Turgal, assistant director for office of congressional affairs Greg Bower, executive assistant director Michael Steinbach, and executive assistant director John Giacalone. In short, in about every growing scandal of the past two years — FISA, illegal leaking, spying on a presidential candidate, lying under oath, obstructing justice — someone in the FBI is involved. Criminality Of Deep State Investigation Of Trump Confirmed — Has U.S. Become A Banana Republic? Both the Justice Department and FBI have maintained they didn't really know that Trump Dossier compiler Christopher Steele had any bias at all against Trump. And, even when they got their hands on Steele's unverified dossier on Trump, they claim they didn't know that Steele's employer, Fusion GPS, had any conflicts of interest. Moreover, when they appeared before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to get the OK to spy on former Trump aide Carter Page, they didn't tell the court what they knew. They lied. Or at the very minimum, concealed the truth. This is a crime. How can we be sure that top officials at Justice and the FBI knew all this? Ohr said so. Walls Are Closing in on the FBI and Its Media Accomplices. Those of us who have closely followed the unfolding scandal at the Justice Department — particularly how the FBI abused its power not only to spy on the Trump presidential campaign but also on the president himself — have been frustrated with the inaction both of the White House and Congress. Documents have not been declassified as promised; letters by top lawmakers have gone unanswered with no consequence; and not one perpetrator in the biggest political scandal in history has been held accountable. The New York Times over the weekend confirmed the worst suspicions: Andrew McCabe, a disgraced FBI official caught lying to federal investigators and fired by Trump, and his corrupt lackeys opened up a criminal and counterintelligence probe into President Trump on the flimsiest of evidence in May 2017. Further, statements from William Barr, Trump's nominee for attorney general, seem to indicate he would be deferential to Special Counsel Robert Mueller rather than focus on the real scandal. It was unclear whether a change in leadership at the Justice Department and on the Senate Judiciary Committee (Lindsey Graham took the reins from Charles Grassley this year) would restart stalled congressional inquiries. The conspiracy to destroy the Trump presidency is far worse than we knew and will continue. [T]op people in the FBI filled with hatred and frankly, anti-Trump rage, who have put aside all values and their blatant political bias, were seeking redemption for the firing of James Comey. They actually plotted to destroy your duly-elected president. And this is way beyond what we already knew up until this point. According to, as usual, anonymous sources in the New York Times report last Friday, two days after Comey was unceremoniously terminated, several top FBI officials actually questioned whether or not President Trump was working directly for Russia. They did this without a single shred of evidence, zero probable cause, zero proof of any collusion. It was a witch hunt. The president has been right from Day One. An FBI that is corrupt and dishonest — Latest reports offer only more proof. Dishonesty and corruption are endemic at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The latest proof comes in a New York Times report that the FBI initiated an investigation in May of 2017 into whether President Donald Trump was serving as a covert Russian agent. The accusation itself was ludicrous on its face. But from a legal standpoint, the FBI's probe constituted an egregious abuse of power. The Bureau had no probable cause, no evidence, and no reasonable suspicions. They investigated Trump because they could. They defied the law, ignored or perverted facts, and debased the integrity of a heretofore-respected law enforcement agency. Why did these rogue officials commit such an outrageous act of malfeasance? In a word, vengeance. Already incensed that Trump had defeated their preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton, they grew furious when the president fired Director James Comey on May 9, 2017. NYT Reveals FBI Retaliated Against Trump For Comey Firing. In a Friday night news dump, the New York Times revealed the FBI's surprisingly flimsy justification for launching a retaliatory investigation into President Donald Trump, their chief adversary during their recent troubled era. Admitting there is no actual evidence for their probe into whether Trump "worked for the Russians," FBI officials instead cited their foreign policy differences with him, his lawful firing of bungling FBI Director James Comey, and alarm that he accurately revealed to the American public that he was told he wasn't under investigation by the FBI, when they preferred to hide that fact. The news was treated as a bombshell, and it was, but not for the reasons many thought. It wasn't news that the FBI had launched the investigation. Just last month, CNN reported that top FBI officials opened an investigation into Trump after the lawful firing of Comey because Trump "needed to be reined in," a shocking admission of abuse of power by our nation's top law enforcement agency. Watergate by Any Other Name. For almost three years now, the intelligence services and police apparatus of the deep state have worked tirelessly to undermine Donald Trump. [...] But win he did, and that changed everything. Now it was not a candidate who had to be stopped but a duly elected president of the United States who had to be kept from knowing exactly what lengths the government — soon to be his government — had gone to destroy him. From November 9, 2016, to January 20, 2017, the reins of government were still in the hands of Barack Obama. The apparatus to stop Trump the candidate was already in place. Now it would be deployed against Trump the president-elect and, later, Trump the president. Over the last few days, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other anti-Trump outlets have revealed, and reveled in, something that many observers suspected for a long time. That the investigation into various figures associated with the Trump campaign — not only Carter Page, but also George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, and Michael Cohen — was just a pretext. The main target all along was Trump himself. The FBI Prostituted Itself. Citing unnamed "former law enforcement sources and others," the New York Times reports that "in the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president's behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests." The mainstream media has touted this story as major breaking news. But, to anyone who has been paying even a modicum of attention, it is crystal clear that Comey's firing did not precipitate the FBI's investigation of Trump. To the contrary, the readily available record facts demonstrate that Comey's FBI began investigating Trump and his campaign for possible Russian collusion shortly after he won the Republican Party's nomination. The Paranoid Style at the FBI. The FBI's counterintelligence probe of Trump marks one of its lowest moments of political paranoia. As anti-Trump hysteria, before and after his election, swept through Washington, D.C., Comey and his staff succumbed to it, turning the FBI into an extension of the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton's opposition researcher, Christopher Steele, might as well have had an office down the hall from Comey, such was the FBI's absurd reliance upon Steele's smears. It was bad enough that the FBI had already treated multiple members of Trump's campaign as "probable" Russian agents during the campaign, based on nothing more than flaky partisan hunches. It then on even thinner grounds placed a president in that category too. Out of months of obsessing over Trump — from vows to "stop" his candidacy to talk of an "insurance policy" in the event that he won — Peter Strzok and company hatched one of the most half-cocked probes in the history of the FBI. The FBI's 'Trump treason' probe flunked civics. The FBI took it upon itself to determine whether the president of the United States is a threat to national security. No one had ever before thought that this was an appropriate role for the FBI, a subordinate agency in the executive branch, but President Trump isn't the only one in Washington trampling norms. The Stench Still Lingers. The political corruption of a law enforcement agency — the kind that led the FBI to ignore the obvious felonies of one candidate and try to invent crimes in an effort to target her opponent — is, by far, the corruption most damaging to democracy. The stench of that political corruption still lingers over the FBI and the Justice Department, but neither Trump nor anyone in his administration is willing or able to deal with it. The problem has gotten worse, not better. The Lingering Stench of Coverup at Justice and the FBI. What began as a good week for President Trump stalled and finally ended badly. On Monday [9/17/2018], he ordered the Justice Department to declassify and provide to congressional investigators a pile of documents, many of which the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) subpoenaed more than a year ago. From Tuesday until Friday morning, we waited in vain for any evidence that the president's order had been complied with by the FBI and DoJ. On Friday morning, HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) told a Fox News interviewer that his committee hadn't seen any of the documents that the president's Monday order had declassified. Obviously, the FBI and DoJ weren't complying with the president's order. Then came Trump's Friday announcement that he'd canceled the declassification order after being persuaded to do so by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and "key allies" — Britain? Australia? Russia? Mexico? — who'd called to urge him not to declassify the documents in question. Can We Trust the FBI? Peter Strzok. Lisa Page. AndrewMcCabe. James Comey. Sound familiar? That's the FBI — the folks who are being asked to investigate, apparently for one week, the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh. Yes, that group is mercifully gone now, but who is behind them? And what have we not yet learned of the internal conspiracy against President Trump currently being investigated by the inspector general? Who else is involved and who then will be conducting and supervising this investigation? Will it be the same people? In other words, can we trust the FBI with this when the institution itself is so tainted and deeply in need of reform? America in Throes of a Bloodless Revolution. It is obvious that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been politicized, and the awesome power of this feared organization has been subverted. They have supported lies, used false documents to initiate a special counsel, interrupted the lives of American patriots who gave up defending themselves because it is impossible to outlast a government agency who can use taxpayer money to keep you in court for as long as they want to. The Justice Department, which has basically been leaderless under the tenure of Jeff Sessions has, under the feckless interim directorship of Rod Rosenstein, definitely listed to port and been complicit in obtaining FISA Court warrants under false pretenses. Had everything gone according to plan, Hillary Clinton would have been elected, and all the corruption would have been buried way down deep. The Only Subject Ben Sasse Won't Talk About: Spygate. Although [Ben] Sasse has issued two statements in support of Sessions in recent weeks, he has not made any formal comments about the misconduct and potentially unlawful behavior of the following people: Former FBI Director James Comey; former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe; Assistant Attorney General Bruce Ohr; FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. [...] Comey is now under investigation by the Justice Department's Inspector General for mishandling government documents. McCabe in under a grand jury investigation. Ohr twice has been demoted at the Justice Department; his wife, Nellie, worked for the political opposition research firm that produced the anti-Trump dossier and both Ohrs were in contact with the dossier's author, Christopher Steele. Strzok and Page had numerous exchanges about how to stop Trump's candidacy and then undermine his administration after he was elected. Can the FBI be independent? When President Donald Trump appointed Atlanta lawyer Christopher Wray to succeed James Comey as the director of the FBI, my initial reaction was not positive. Wray is a veteran of the Department of Justice and is part of that good-old-boy DOJ network that knows how to protect its own. Indeed, when then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a former U.S. attorney, needed a good criminal defense lawyer — whose millions in fees were paid by New Jersey taxpayers — he hired Wray. Christie was never indicted in the Bridgegate scandal, but defense counsel for those who were sought Christie's cellphone to demonstrate to jurors the governor's involvement in the plot to shut down lanes near the George Washington Bridge for political retaliation. Christie claimed that he gave his phone to federal prosecutors, but they told the court that they did not have the phone. Where was it? In a safe of the Atlanta law firm that employed Wray. New Schweizer-recommended book exposes extent of corruption at FBI and DOJ. The FBI and the DOJ have gone to the Dark Side. Amazing, considering their longstanding promotion of their status and posture for decades as the defenders of freedom and the American way — but times change, and the deep Deep State has no special affection for the America conceived of and promoted by the founders. I have a friend and colleague who is retired from the FBI. We talk, and he insists that the FBI basic hardworking field agents and such are concerned and upset about the misconduct of the many miscreants in the leadership of the FBI and the DOJ. For example, he tells me of the perceived problems that were created by FBI decisions to make cases headquarters cases instead of following FBI protocols that made the field agents the drivers of the case. However, I see nothing of any effort by FBI agents to fix the corruption problem at the top. Wanna know why? They are bureaucrats, and they have no taste for the risks of fixing corruption. Devin Nunes: Clinton campaign colluded with 'nearly every' top official at the DOJ and FBI. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes declared Sunday that Hillary Clinton's campaign "colluded" with nearly every top official in the Justice Department and FBI. An interview on Fox News had turned to the topic of Trump dossier author Christopher Steele and his ties to Bruce Ohr, a high-level DOJ official who fed the FBI information from the ex-British spy even after he was cut as a source for providing confidential information to the media. Why aren't the Democrats horrified by the corruption at the FBI and DOJ? It is becoming clearer by the day, after over a year of investigations, that the Obama administration did indeed weaponize the DOJ, the FBI, the CIA, the ATF, the IRS and the NSA. Over those eight years, each of the above agencies was transformed into an arm of the Democratic Party tasked with crippling the opposition and abrogating the Constitution. Since all of the mainstream media already were arms of the DNC, it is well and truly a miracle that Donald Trump prevailed throughout his campaign to win the election, as the entire DC bureaucracy and media were aligned against him. Most of them still are. The Police Were Not Policed. Most recently, it was disclosed, two years after the fact — and despite the FBI's kicking-and-screaming refusal to release subpoenaed documents — that the FBI did, as alleged, offer to pay Christopher Steele to dig for dirt on the Trump campaign. The FBI also knew that Steele was working on behalf of the Clinton campaign to find dirt on Donald Trump. We now also know that the FBI used at least one informant to spy on members of the Trump campaign. In other words, the FBI joined forces with one political campaign to thwart the efforts of the opposing campaign. Has that happened before in American history? FBI Vault Release — FBI Requested Data Forensics on Huma Abedin/Clinton Laptop AFTER the 2016 Election, Not Before. From the Boston Marathon bombing investigation through the San Bernardino terrorist attack; passing the Garland, Texas cartoon terror shooting; and continuing through Orlando's Pulse Nightclub; and then through the Parkland shooting and into Las Vegas — via the Mandalay Bay — we always knew something was wrong with the apparatus, the institutional apparatus, of the FBI... but it wasn't until 2017 with James Comey, Andrew McCabe and the transparently corrupt Clinton exoneration and candidate Trump set-up scheme that we fully grasped the scale and scope of the corruption. It is disconcerting to accept that the institution of the FBI is corrupt, soup-to-nuts, including every aforementioned field office and participant therein. But reality doesn't care about feelings; it just stares you in the face until we accept it. Talking heads always approach the issue with a co-dependent and enabling qualifier: "we're not talking about the field agents", they say. Um, no; that's nonsense. If the institution is corrupt, then every entity within it is corrupt — until such time as the corruption is removed. Progressive Regression. The FBI may not recover its reputation. Certainly, the brand of its Washington office is shredded. Watching new Director Christopher Wray stumble about to reassure us about his reforms inspires about as much credulity as a pre-war French general touting the invincibility provided by the Maginot Line. The Left more or less has canonized a parade of disreputable FBI officials. Peter Strzok violated almost every canon of professional conduct, in his personal comportment, in his blatant prevarication about his own text messages, and in his dogged pride in his conflicts of interest in using his authority to pursue a political agenda. His superior Andrew McCabe, according to the inspector general, likewise lied on several occasions. Christopher Wray and Jeff Sessions must clean up FBI corruption or quit. FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Jeff Sessions are sitting squarely in the crosshairs of history. They must rise to the call of duty and clean up the corruption we are seeing unfold at the FBI or they must tender their resignations and be replaced by real leaders who will do what is necessary to restore public trust in our unraveling justice system. A powerful government agency that — like the IRS under former President Barack Obama's watch — was unmistakably weaponized to target political opponents. The recent shocking revelations that underhanded FBI officials misled the FISA court to get a warrant to spy on Carter Page, an unpaid, low-level volunteer, as a bridge to spy on the Trump campaign and transition team is beyond alarming; it's flat-out corrupt — police-state tactics seen, ironically, in places like Russia. Just How Far Will the Left Go? We are about 430 days into Robert Mueller's investigation; the special prosecutor whose team of lawyers and investigators has in a large part been made up either of Clinton donors, clear Clinton partisans, lawyers who have in the past represented Clinton interests or employees, or partisans already removed for expressing clear Trump hatred. The media grew ecstatic over its creation, dubbing it an "all-star" or "dream" team, as leaks assured the public that next week, next month, or "soon" there would be a sensational indictment proving that Trump colluded with the Russians to win the presidency. Obama intel chiefs gave Russia a pass, and now blame — Donald Trump? Long before the 2016 election, when Donald Trump was a mere private citizen, Russia was engaged in widespread cyber-aggression against the United States. Moscow racheted up those attacks during the campaign. And yet, despite knowledge of the ongoing cyberwarfare, the president at the time, Barack Obama, and his intelligence chiefs — John Brennan at the CIA, James Clapper at National Intelligence, James Comey and his predecessor, Robert Mueller, at the FBI — reportedly didn't lift a finger to stop it. Why? Because the Obama administration was obsessed with protecting its bigger agenda: namely, closing and implementing the Iran nuclear deal and trying to save their collapsed Russian "reset." Calling Russia on its malign cyber activity would have imperiled both initiatives, so Obama and his intel team apparently chose to ignore it, even as it escalated. Mueller's witch hunt [is] a growing disaster for national security. The evidence is mounting that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's open-ended investigation into whether President Trump colluded with the Russians to steal the election from Hillary Clinton (which has turned up nothing on that specific front) is becoming more than just a political burr under the saddle of President Trump. It may be a growing national security problem. Rampant corruption [is] the norm in FBI. People tend to forget, or maybe never knew, just how corrupt the famous but incompetent Federal Bureau of Investigation has always been. This current scandal is just business as usual for the agency that has metastasized into America's secret police. Strzok's weaselly testimony last week showed just how far off the rails the crooked feds have gone. And it just so happens that this summer is the 40th anniversary of another horrific crime, one in which this same crew of dirty cops played a supporting, but revealing role. The Gangster State. [Scroll down] This becomes more obvious when looking at the whole criminal enterprise that is currently called the FBI. There's no question that the people at the top engaged in a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy to spy on the Trump campaign and engineer a criminal investigation of his administration, for the purpose of removing him from office. This is the one explanation that explains the mountain of evidence piled up in the public domain. This is so obvious that no one bothers to deny it. Instead, the game is to avoid discussing it in public. Lurking in the secret FBI files can be only three possibilities, with regards to this conspiracy. One, there is proof they cooked the whole thing to help get Hillary Clinton elected. The other is some out of left field explanation for the mountain of data, that points to an innocent motive. The final option is a massive hole in the system where the damning proof used to exists, but has now been destroyed as part of the cover-up. To date, the FBI and DOJ refuse to comply with Congressional subpoenas to answer this question. The Gangster State. [Scroll down] This becomes more obvious when looking at the whole criminal enterprise that is currently called the FBI. There's no question that the people at the top engaged in a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy to spy on the Trump campaign and engineer a criminal investigation of his administration, for the purpose of removing him from office. This is the one explanation that explains the mountain of evidence piled up in the public domain. This is so obvious that no one bothers to deny it. Instead, the game is to avoid discussing it in public. Lurking in the secret FBI files can be only three possibilities, with regards to this conspiracy. One, there is proof they cooked the whole thing to help get Hillary Clinton elected. The other is some out of left field explanation for the mountain of data, that points to an innocent motive. The final option is a massive hole in the system where the damning proof used to exists, but has now been destroyed as part of the cover-up. To date, the FBI and DOJ refuse to comply with Congressional subpoenas to answer this question. The Overlords Have Arrived. Today, Americans are trying to separate their consideration of an investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election from what increasingly looks like the wreckage of a failed coup against the election and office of the current president. And the signs of a confrontation across barricades between Americans and their self-appointed Overlords is revealed daily in the transcripts and testimony of the participants in congressional hearings and inquiries. A Factual Comparison of Watergate and Russiagate Shows They're Mirror Opposites. [For example,] In the Watergate scandal, the burglars were discovered by a hotel security guard and arrested by local police on the very first day of the scandal. On day 90 of the Watergate scandal, a grand jury indicted the Watergate burglars plus G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, two of the break-in organizers. In contrast, the 2016 DNC cyber burglars, whoever they are, have never been arrested or indicted. In fact, the DNC has refused to allow law enforcement to inspect the crime scene — i.e., the server itself. The conclusion that Russians hacked the DNC server relies solely upon the opinion of DNC-funded Crowdstrike, a firm hired by Perkins Coie, which also hired Hillary Clinton- and DNC-funded Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Trump. Perkins Coie and their contractors were hired to help Clinton "achieve [her] electoral and strategic objectives." They were not in the business of investigating crimes. There is no public report of the DNC paying the key investigators in the Watergate scandal. Watergate redux. President Obama, although appearing confident of a Clinton victory, apparently feared a Trump win would undo his legacy — which is precisely what has happened — and thus it had to be prevented by whatever means. The leadership of the Justice Department, IRS, FBI, CIA and others in the Obama administration have been, and continue to show themselves to be, fierce Democratic partisans. Again, their motivations for what increasingly appears as extensive inappropriate and illegal behavior seem to be much like their Watergate predecessors. Former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former director of National Intelligence James Clapper have all publicly stated that they do not believe Mr. Trump is fit to be president — with the implicit argument that stopping him is their patriotic duty — the law [notwithstanding]. As the Wiseguys Turn: McCabe, Comey, and the FBI Boys. [W]hat began as an investigation into Russian "collusion" on the part of the Trump campaign and perhaps the president himself, is now steadily being revealed as the sham byproduct of the fixed-fight "probe" of the Clinton email "matter" that allowed the former secretary of state to head into the 2016 election "cleared" of any wrongdoing by the Obama "justice" department. Vengeful over her surprising loss, the Woman Scorned and her cronies in the former administration and the intelligence community then concocted the "collusion" narrative, obligingly peddled to the public by the Democrat-controlled media, to strangle the Trump presidency in its cradle. And they almost got away with it. The FBI's Watergate. "What did the president know, and when did he know it?" On June 28, 1973, during a hearing before the Senate Watergate Committee, the ranking member, Tennessee Republican Howard Baker, posed the central question of the investigation. Forty-five summers after Baker uttered those historic words, the same question now hangs over the alleged collusion between Donald Trump and Russia in the 2016 election. But this time the question is directed at the investigators. It runs like this: What did the FBI know, when did it know it — and from whom did it get this information? The answers are essential to a public accounting of what in fact happened during an election in which the FBI was investigating both the Republican and Democratic nominees for president or their campaigns. But unlike Watergate, which the FBI solved, the more we learn about these investigations, the more troubling the FBI's behavior appears. Unfortunately, rather than make a clean breast of it all, new FBI Director Christopher Wray behaves as though the bureau doesn't need to answer to the American people's elected representatives in Congress. London 'bridges' falling down: curious origins of FBI's Trump-Russia probe. The bridge to the Russia investigation wasn't erected in Moscow during the summer of the 2016 election. It originated earlier, 1,700 miles away in London, where foreign figures contacted Trump campaign advisers and provided the FBI with hearsay allegations of Trump-Russia collusion, bureau documents and interviews of government insiders reveal. These contacts in spring 2016 — some from trusted intelligence sources, others from Hillary Clinton supporters — occurred well before FBI headquarters authorized an official counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016. The new timeline makes one wonder: Did the FBI follow its rules governing informants? The Politicization of the FBI. Over the past year, facts have emerged that suggest there was a plot by high-ranking FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials in the Obama administration, acting under color of law, to exonerate Hillary Clinton of federal crimes and then, if she lost the election, to frame Donald Trump and his campaign for colluding with Russia to steal the presidency. This conduct was not based on mere bias, as has been widely claimed, but rather on deeply felt animus toward Trump and his agenda. In the course of this plot, FBI Director James Comey, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, FBI Deputy Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok, Strzok's paramour and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, FBI General Counsel James Baker, and DOJ senior official Bruce Ohr — perhaps among others — compromised federal law enforcement to such an extent that the American public is losing trust. The appointment of Robert Mueller violates the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. The appointment of Robert Mueller violates the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. Mueller is not an inferior appointee, but a principal appointee as understood under our constitutional. His powers are more akin to an United States attorney, not an assistant United States attorney. Moreover, his boss, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, treats him as a principal officer — that is, Mueller is mostly free to conduct his investigation with few limits or restraints. The parameters of his appointment were extraordinarily broad in the first instance, and have only expanded since then. Indeed, Mueller is more powerful than most United States attorneys, all of whom were nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate as principal officers. Furthermore, Rosenstein mostly rubber stamps Mueller's decisions and is not involved in the regular management and oversight of Mueller to any significant extent, underscoring Mueller's role not as an inferior officer but a principal officer. As such, Mueller's appointment violates the Appointments Clause. Mueller would've had to be nominated for Senate confirmation like any other principal officer in the Executive Branch. Rosenstein did not have the constitutional power to appoint a principal officer on his own anymore than the President himself does. To do otherwise is to defy the procedure established by the Framers for making such consequential executive appointments. It follows, then, that every subpoena, indictment, and plea agreement involving the Mueller investigation is null and void. Every defendant, suspect, witness, etc., in this matter should challenge the Mueller appointment as a violation of the Appointments Clause. We Need to Know What Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Rice, Power and the Rest of Them Did. The Mueller investigation has, oddly enough, revealed that the greatest perpetrator against the American people in the 2016 election was the federal government. The greatest perpetrator against the American people was the federal government, was the leadership in the FBI, the CIA, the national intelligence director, etc. We cannot allow this to happen again. We saw our federal government used by the prior administration, by the head of the CIA, by the head of the FBI, by the head of national intelligence and many, many others used to try and destroy the candidate of the opposition party. These Obama intelligence officials tried to destroy Donald Trump and the electoral process. An administration interfering in elections is something we've never seen anything before in American history. How the FBI and CIA Restarted the Cold War to Protect Themselves. [Scroll down] In the two years that have elapsed since, it has been learned that the "intelligence" that formed the basis for the sanctions was beyond dubious. A single unverified "dossier" compiled by an ex-British spy with no discernable connections to Russia was shopped to FISA judges and the media as something real. The dossier was opposition research by the Hillary Clinton campaign, a fact that was not disclosed and actively hidden by off-the-book transactions through the law firm Perkins Coie. As a dog that chases its tail, the fake dossier was being used to cause the investigation which itself lent credibility to the notion of Russian interference. The FBI and CIA thumbed the eye of an armed nuclear state based on false intelligence. Why? The answer is now obvious: to cover up their own election year shenanigans they thought would remain forever hidden in the inevitable Hillary Clinton victory. The Politicization of the FBI. Over the past year, facts have emerged that suggest there was a plot by high-ranking FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials in the Obama administration, acting under color of law, to exonerate Hillary Clinton of federal crimes and then, if she lost the election, to frame Donald Trump and his campaign for colluding with Russia to steal the presidency. This conduct was not based on mere bias, as has been widely claimed, but rather on deeply felt animus toward Trump and his agenda. In the course of this plot, FBI Director James Comey, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, FBI Deputy Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok, Strzok's paramour and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, FBI General Counsel James Baker, and DOJ senior official Bruce Ohr — perhaps among others — compromised federal law enforcement to such an extent that the American public is losing trust. A recent CBS News poll finds 48 percent of Americans believe that Special Counsel James Mueller's Trump-Russia collusion probe is "politically motivated," a stunning conclusion. And 63 percent of polled voters in a Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll believe that the FBI withheld vital information from Congress about the Clinton and Russia collusion investigations. FBI-gate: The Outlines of the Story Are Coming into Focus. Thanks to the work of smart and hardworking (non-mainstream) journalists, we can peek just a bit over the horizon and see where the story of the weaponization of the FBI via a senior-level cabal is going from here. I use the word "story" deliberately, because that is the way public opinion forms itself on major political affairs. The progressives in the media and politics have long understood this. The cast of the story is now set, and some dramatic plot points have been identified. The ending hasn't been written yet, of course, but the villains are identifying themselves or being exposed, and some of the heroes are emerging. We are on the cusp of a drama much bigger than Watergate breaking open, and its story elements are compelling. Scandal, Corruption, Lawbreaking — And So What? [Scroll down] Despite a nonstop media assault on Trump's administration, Representative Devin Nunes, and the congressional investigative committees, more than 50 percent of the public already believes that the Trump campaign was illegally surveilled and smeared through the confluence of the Clinton campaign, the Obama administration, and the FBI. Voters would only grow more cynical if some Americans were allowed to abuse constitutionally protected civil liberties, and to lie to the Congress, the FBI, and the courts, while the less connected others go to jail for much less. Without a judicial accounting, it will be impossible to clean up the hierarchies of the FBI and the DOJ. The Ruling Class Hates You. Truth is, they really don't like the rest of us. No problem, we have our own lives and families. But it's only not a problem until such disdain is combined with a sense of political entitlement and the coercive power of government. Which brings us to the political and cultural union of the Democratic Party and the permanent political class called the deep state, that forms the unelected, unaccountable fourth branch of government that wields so much power up to and including the police power of the FBI. October 2016: James Comey Friend Benjamin Wittes Discusses "The Insurance Policy" Against Trump. In hindsight there are many contexts that shape a new understanding. Fired FBI Director James Comey ran a corrupt and heavily political organization. He himself helped to shape the politics of it. On Comey's watch he allowed the FBI to become a weaponized tool against political enemies. The upper-level officials within the FBI are now under scrutiny as their actions are increasingly transparent in their political motives. Biased FBI and DOJ Officials Broke The Law And Tried To Decide The Election. There can be no question, at this point, that certain higher ups in the FBI and the DOJ did not want Hillary to be indicted and did not want Donald Trump to become President. Those efforts were not entirely independent of each other. Below is a timeline of events — abbreviated though it is — that makes it rather plain that the FBI and DOJ were not investigating potential crimes objectively. Indeed, they were committing crimes during the process in aid of their preferred outcomes. Did Hillary Clinton pull off the dirtiest dirty trick in US presidential history? For law enforcement, Congress and even journalists, exposing misdeeds is like peeling an onion. Each layer you remove gets you closer to the truth. So it is with the scandalous behavior of the FBI during its probe into whether President Trump's campaign conspired with Russia in 2016. One layer at a time, we're learning how flawed and dirty that probe was. A top layer involves the texts between FBI lawyer Lisa Page and her married lover, Peter Strzok, the lead agent on the Hillary Clinton e-mail probe. They casually mention an "insurance policy" in the event Trump won the election and a plan for Strzok to go easy on Clinton because she probably would be their next boss. From Conspiracy Theories to Conspiracies. [Scroll down] The FBI itself would have earlier trafficked in a fraudulent document funded by the Clinton campaign to "prove" Trump and his team were such dangers to the republic that they required surveillance under FISA court warrants and thus should surrender their constitutional rights of privacy. The ensuing surveillance, then, would be widely disseminated among Obama Administration officials, with the likely intent that names would be unmasked and leaked to the anti-Trump press — again, in efforts to discredit, first, the Trump campaign, and later the Trump transition and presidency. A top official of the prior Department of Justice would personally consult the authors of the smear dossier in efforts to ensure that its contents would become useful and known. In fact, all that and more has already transpired. The FBI's war on Trump. Two lovebirds and others at the FBI need to be investigated on charges of plotting to influence a presidential election and later cripple a presidential administration. [...] Curiously, the FBI somehow "lost" thousands of messages between Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page for the five months from Dec. 14, 2016, to May 17, 2017. After a public firestorm, they finally turned up on Thursday [1/25/2018], according to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. "This period coincides with the height of the FBI's investigation into possible Trump-Russia collusion, on which Mr. Strzok was a lead investigator," The Wall Street Journal notes. Compared to the 18-minute "gap" in the White House tape during the Watergate scandal, this is the Grand Canyon. So what does the Bureau have to say about it? They blamed it on "misconfiguration issues related to rollouts, provisioning, and software upgrades." Someone at the FBI actually wrote that. Maybe it's true. The pattern of alarming behavior at the FBI and the Justice Department deserves a recap: [...] No Such Thing As An Independent FBI. Of the many criticisms of President Trump, perhaps one of the more ill-considered is the suggestion that he is interfering with the "independence" of the FBI. The FBI, the argument goes, is not only a high-skilled, highly trained, and highly professional law enforcement organization — which it undoubtedly is — but should do its work free from political interference or control by the executive. This is nonsense — nonsense with totalitarian implications. The FBI is part of the executive branch, an investigative arm of the Department of Justice. The chain of command is simple. How a Civil War Happens. Now we're seeing what the pros do when amateurs try to walk in on them. They spy on them, they investigate them and they send them to jail. They use the tools of power to bring them down. That's not a free country. It's not a free country when FBI agents who support Hillary take out an "insurance policy" against Trump winning the election. It's not a free country when Obama officials engage in massive unmasking of the opposition. It's not a free country when the media responds to the other guy winning by trying to ban the conservative media that supported him from social media. It's not a free country when all of the above collude together to overturn an election because the guy who wasn't supposed to win, won. We're in a civil war between conservative volunteer government and leftist professional government. The FBI's Secret State Police. The FBI's current stonewalling bears more than a passing resemblance to the Geheime Staatspolizei, the National Socialists' secret state police. The people's representatives have been seeking answers on the probe of Russian influence in the 2016 election. Former FBI boss Robert Mueller has failed to turn up any evidence of "collusion" in more than a year, but other matters have come to light. FBI man Peter Strzok has been Hillary Clinton's Odd Job, changing gross negligence to extremely careless, failing to keep records of the interview with the former First Lady, and allowing her aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills to tell more than 300 lies about the unsecured server Clinton used to send classified material. Representatives such as Trey Gowdy and Jim Jordan want to know if Strzok played a role in the compiling the fake dossier with Russian content. They also seek to know whether Strzok was the one who deployed the dossier to gain a FISA warrant to enable spying on the Trump campaign and unmask U.S. citizens. FBI-Gate: Deep State in Deep Spit. In January, the Justice Department's inspector general launched an investigation into a possible conflict of interest involving McCabe's failure to disclose donations to his wife by arguably the closest political ally of Bill and Hillary Clinton, Terry McAuliffe. The governor of Virginia recruited McCabe's wife, Jill, to run for state senate in the commonwealth and donated $467,500 from his political action committee into her coffers. The Department of Justice demoted Bruce Ohr last week for hiding secret meetings with Fusion GPS, the opposition research outfit that paid, with money received from Hillary Clinton's campaign, for the so-called "dossier" smearing Donald Trump with outlandish allegations based, in some instances, on second- and third-hand information. Fusion GPS hired Ohr's wife to investigate Trump. Should The FBI Be Abolished? For the last few years, the media has been dominated by a number of sensational stories: that Trump colluded with Russia to influence the presidential election; that the Trump team was wiretapped by Obama intelligence officials; that Hillary used a private email server to transmit classified information; that Hillary and the DNC colluded with Russian sources to compile a dossier on Trump, and finally, that Russia acquired 20% of America's uranium supply during the same time period $145 million miraculously appeared in the Clinton Foundation's bank account. It all stinks to high heaven but it's created a confusing array of facts that has bewildered most Americans. They all know something is seriously wrong with their country even if they can't pinpoint exactly what the problem is. But there is a common denominator in all these scandals or alleged scandals, and that would be the FBI and the actions they took or didn't take. Indeed, it's hard to not conclude that the agency's actions in these events were improper if not illegal. If so, this validates the warnings by constitutionalists in the early 1900s that a federal police force would someday be used to prop up the ruling elites and attack those who dare challenge the establishment. The Federal Bureau of Political Investigation. [Scroll down] All of this is commanded by law to be kept secret so as to preserve evidence, avoid tipping off a potential defendant capable of flight and preserve the reputation of a person not indicted. That is at least the way these things are supposed to work. Yet none of this happened in the recently reopened and re-terminated investigation of the misuse of emails containing state secrets by Clinton. In that investigation, the DOJ did not present evidence to a grand jury. Thus, it did not obtain any subpoenas. And it did not seek any search warrants. It cut deals left and right, promising not to prosecute those from whom it sought problematic evidence. After accumulating a mountain of evidence of Clinton's guilt, the FBI did not present it to the DOJ. A Changing Investigative Landscape. [FBI Director James] Comey has been battered by news reports of turmoil within the FBI over investigations of the Clintons. Rumors flew earlier this year that an indictment of Mrs. Clinton was imminent. The story du jour is that elements within the FBI are closing in on the Clinton Foundation, or the Clinton finances, or generalized Clinton corruption — were it not for the perfidy of Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch. FBI field agents and supervisors — particularly in the powerful New York field office — are said to be up in arms, handing in their resignations. The independence of the FBI has collapsed. Don't believe it. FBI agents are by nature an aggressive bunch — chasing leads, questioning suspects, pushing for warrants and wire taps — and butting heads with cautious superiors. The tensions between agents who make the criminal case and prosecutors who make the legal call are as old as the FBI itself. The Fall of an FBI Director. Every agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation takes an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic" and to "bear true faith and allegiance to the same." And he swears to "faithfully discharge the duties of the office." It is much the same oath taken by members of Congress, by military officers and government employees. It is an oath that goes back to Washington and Lincoln. Its origins lie in the Constitution. And FBI Director James Comey violated it. The oath is not to any president or government, but to the impartial law of the Constitution. It says that no one is above the law. James Comey twice stated implicitly that one politician is above the law. 5 of the dumbest things the FBI did before Clinton. In light of the news that the FBI will not prosecute Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server, the agency is getting heat from both sides of the political aisle. Conservatives feel that Clinton was given preferential treatment due to her connections to the Obama administration, noting that "less important" people have been thrown in jail for far less. Meanwhile, Clinton's defenders claim that the FBI is largely pro-Trump and that the whole investigation was a witch hunt designed to boost the billionaire mogul's chances of taking the White House. In other words, pretty much everyone thinks the FBI is corrupt, partisan, and ineffective. Given the agency's history, that's not an unreasonable assumption to make. Over the years, the FBI has engaged in some truly stupid activities that make you wonder how it manages to protect us at all. The FBI: The 'Fix Be In'. The FBI's reputation has sunk so low under the Obama administration that its initials seem to stand for: The Fix Be In. [...] Consider the Clinton investigation. The FBI granted limited immunity to five Clinton aides, including Paul Combetta, who deleted Clinton emails in March 2015 after Congress had subpoenaed her records. FBI agents waited a year before they questioned Clinton in July for an hour and a half. Shortly thereafter, Director James Comey announced there would be no indictment in the case; even though Clinton did not hand over "several thousand" work emails to the State Department, there was no proof of "intentional misconduct." Book details how Team Obama schemed to let Hillary skate. In his new book, "Guilty As Sin" (Regnery), out Tuesday [10/4/2016], Edward Klein claims officials in the Obama administration decided before the first witness was interviewed that Hillary Clinton would not face prosecution over the handling of classified e-mail. Comey 'Singlehandedly Ruined' FBI's Reputation: Retired Agents Blast Clinton Probe. Retired FBI agents are blasting Director Jim Comey over the investigation into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, according to a Thursday [10/6/2016] opinion piece in The New York Post. "Comey has single-handedly ruined the reputation of the organization," former agent Michael M. Biasello told the outlet. He claimed that accommodations given the Clinton and her aides was "unprecedented," suggesting, "which is another way of saying this outcome was by design." FBI Director James Comey Has To Go. FBI Director James Comey has broken the sacred trust of the American people. He conducted a faux investigation into the State Department email scandal in which dozens of confidential and top-secret emails passing through an unsecured, private server put our national security at risk. He handed out immunity deals to most of the major players involved in the investigation. He ignored evidence to protect the Clinton Team from prosecution. He put President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton's political legacy ahead of the law. He made secret deals to destroy evidence, thwarting congressional subpoenas. That's called obstruction of justice. It's a crime. James Comey violated the law. He violated his oath of office. It's corruption at the highest level. James Comey and Loretta Lynch Should Be Impeached for Whitewashing Clinton's Crimes. Just when one thinks the cavalier cabal of Clinton and her cronies has exhausted all manner of corruption, yet another outrage surfaces, implicating even more people. The bombshell this week is that Loretta Lynch and James Comey not only gave immunity to Hillary's closest co-conspirators Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson — who, despite being attorneys, destroyed evidence right and left — but, in a secret side deal, agreed to limit the FBI's review of the Clinton team laptops to pre-January 2015 and to destroy the laptops when the FBI review was complete. Congress and every law-abiding citizen in this country should be outraged. This blatant destruction of evidence is obstruction of justice itself. FBI Working With the Clinton Campaign? Back in July, the director of the FBI, James Comey, held a press conference in which he said that no charges would be brought against Clinton for her use of a private home e-mail server. This month, ahead of Labor Day, the FBI's official documents on their investigation into Clinton's e-mails were released. In July, Comey stated "we [the FBI] can't establish... that she acted with the necessary criminal intent." The documents released from the FBI sing a different tune. Hillary Clinton used not one, but three, private servers while Secretary of State and all were kept in her basement. None of her e-mails use encryption. An e-mail account using Clinton's server was successfully hacked into in January 2013. A computer and thumb drive with the entire archive of her e-mails was lost in the mail. Sure, Comey can say that these details show no willful intent to break the law but let's keep going. Clinton used 13 Blackberries and 5 iPads with her private home e-mail server and had aides destroy them with hammers after use. The
FBI found 15,000 emails Hillary Clinton didn't turn over. If you scrape away all of the spin and the political
positioning that Hillary Clinton's decision to use a private email server has spawned, you are left with these facts: Hillary Clinton, who tells dreadful lies. Today, it is the American people who have been burned, time and again, by Hillary Clinton's dreadful lies. Let's review just a few examples of her serial dishonesty: She lied repeatedly about her emails. She lied when she said she had "turned over everything I was obligated to turn over" (FBI Director James Comey said the FBI "discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not among the group of 30,000 e-mails returned by Secretary Clinton to state in 2014"). She lied when she said there was "no classified material" in her private emails ... that there was nothing "classified at the time" ... and that there was nothing "marked classified" in her private emails — all of which the FBI director said were untrue. And, to top it all off, she lied about her lies — declaring on national television that "Director Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I've said is consistent with what I have told the American people" — a claim The Post's Fact Checker gave "Four Pinocchios." Hillary Clinton's Email: the Definitive Timeline. Clip and save for future reference. The
Clearest (No Spin) Summary of FBI Report on Hillary Clinton Email. The FBI could not review all of the Hillary
Clinton emails under investigation because: News and timely commentary about the FBI regarding their routine work Report: Huber and Horowitz Investigations Deep State Cons Constructed by DOJ. Paul Sperry has an interesting report posted at RCP-Investigations outlining numerous interviews with DC politicians and would-be witnesses, if any actual DOJ investigation of the FBI and DOJ misconduct was taking place. What Sperry discovers is the year-long narrative around John Huber and Michael Horowitz is factually false. Just like the false framework surrounding the long-forgotten U.S. Attorney John Lausch; the guy who was supposedly hired to facilitate DOJ record production but actually did nothing of the sort; Sperry discovers the framework around U.S. Attorney John Huber was manufactured by career officials inside the DOJ to tamp down problematic demands for a second special counsel. FBI Refuses To Comply With House Declassification Review of Witness Transcripts — Defers To Robert Mueller. The FBI has responded to a request for declassification review of witness transcripts from the Joint House Committee headed by Chairman Bob Goodlatte. The FBI is refusing to comply with the declassification review; and, entirely as expected, outlines the decision-maker for releasing any testimony is ultimately Robert Mueller. [...] Despite their claims, don't be tricked into thinking it's about timing, and/or a workload, and/or the holidays. How do we know this? Well, remember, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Chaired by Devin Nunes, made a similar request for release of their transcripts on September 26th, 2018. The ODNI, DOJ, FBI and Special Counsel have refused to comply for three months. FBI misses deadline to provide docs to Judiciary Committee probing whistleblower raid. The Justice Department and FBI have missed a Wednesday deadline to provide information about the government's mysterious raid on a former FBI contractor-turned-whistleblower's home last month. Sixteen FBI agents on Nov. 19 raided the home of Dennis Nathan Cain, who reportedly gave the Justice Department's Inspector General (IG) documents related to the Uranium One controversy and potential wrongdoing by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The documents in question allegedly showed that federal officials failed to investigate possible criminal activity related to Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and Rosatom, a Russian nuclear company. Its subsidiary purchased Canadian mining company Uranium One in 2013. FBI defies subpoena for docs on its raid on Uranium One whistleblower. The Deep State now is publicly baring its fangs at us, laughing at ineffective attempts to hold it accountable for abuse and worse. I hate to be alarmist, but we have police agencies misbehaving and then destroying the evidence and refusing to cooperate with constitutional oversight functions. Just in the last couple of days, we have learned that critical form 302 records were altered months after they were first created regarding the FBI interview upon which General Michael Flynn was prosecuted. And we learned that the Special Counsel's Office of Robert Mueller scrubbed access to the text messages of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the texting blabbermouths who revealed the D.S. "insurance policy" in the event Trump won the presidency. DOJ Wants To Keep Justification For Raiding Reported Clinton Foundation Whistleblower Secret. The letter was sent to the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on Dec. 7 in response to The Daily Caller News Foundation's Nov. 30 request to unseal court documents that would show the FBI's rationale for the raid. The documents could potentially reveal whether the bureau and the magistrate who signed the court order allowing the raid, Stephanie A. Gallagher, knew that the subject was, according to his lawyer, a recognized whistleblower. Sixteen FBI agents raided Dennis Cain's Union Bridge, Maryland, home on Nov. 19 for six hours, even though Cain told them that he was a recognized whistleblower and handed classified documents over to the agents. The documents Cain possessed reportedly showed that federal officials failed to investigate potential criminal activity regarding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and the Russian company that purchased Uranium One. DOJ Wants Details of Mysterious FBI Raid on Protected IG Whistleblower Kept Secret. An interesting legal development in the aftermath of the mysterious FBI raid on protected FBI whistleblower Nate Cain. The DOJ wants the details behind the search warrant to remain under seal, and the whistleblower target of that warrant — who was not arrested — is accusing the DOJ-FBI of being a police state. Hillary Clinton & Google Created [a] Covert Server to Hide Classified Benghazi Emails from Congress; FBI Never Probed. It's like a bad spy movie involving a third-world government. Or perhaps a slap stick comedy. The Secretary of State of the United States reading, sending, receiving sensitive emails with national security secrets, threats and classified or top secret intelligence over Google's public Gmail. We expect this from chatting soccer moms but not from the top diplomat of the United States and her aides. But it gets even worse. The FBI either never discovered this blatant and clandestine violation of federal laws or did and simply covered it up. Following the Benghazi consulate attack in 2012, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton secretly worked with Google to reroute email traffic away from her private computer server and use public Google Gmail servers instead. 22-year-old changing in dressing room catches FBI agent taking photos, NJ cops say. A 22-year-old woman was changing in a New Jersey clothing store's dressing room on Thursday [7/19/2018] when she made a horrifying discovery, according to police. There was a man snapping pictures of the woman on his cell phone as the woman changed clothes at the shop in Edison, New Jersey. And when the woman confronted the man, she found out he wasn't just anyone. The man told her he was a law enforcement officer, according to Middlesex County prosecutors. That's when the woman called 911. Danuel S. Brown, a 30-year-old special agent in the FBI's New York field office, was arrested on charges of fourth-degree invasion of privacy, prosecutors said. FBI repeatedly overstated encryption threat figures to Congress, public. The FBI has repeatedly provided grossly inflated statistics to Congress and the public about the extent of problems posed by encrypted cellphones, claiming investigators were locked out of nearly 7,800 devices connected to crimes last year when the correct number was much smaller, probably between 1,000 and 2,000, The Washington Post has learned. Over a period of seven months, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray cited the inflated figure as the most compelling evidence for the need to address what the FBI calls "Going Dark" — the spread of encrypted software that can block investigators' access to digital data even with a court order. FBI Admits It Inflated Number of Supposedly Unhackable Devices. We've learned that the FBI has been misinforming Congress and the public as part of its call for backdoor access to encrypted devices. For months, the Bureau has claimed that encryption prevented it from legally searching the contents of nearly 7,800 devices in 2017, but today the Washington Post reports that the actual number is far lower due to "programming errors" by the FBI. Frankly, we're not surprised. FBI Director Christopher Wray and others argue that law enforcement needs some sort of backdoor "exceptional access" in order to deal with the increased adoption of encryption, particularly on mobile devices. And the 7,775 supposedly unhackable phones encountered by the FBI in 2017 have been central to Wray's claim that their investigations are "Going Dark." But the scope of this problem is called into doubt by services offered by third-party vendors like Cellebrite and Grayshift, which can reportedly bypass encryption on even the newest phones. Maybe Mueller should be investigated. Consider the issue of criticizing Robert Mueller, the special counsel. Any criticism or even skepticism regarding Mueller's history is seen as motivated by a desire to help Trump. Mueller was an assistant U.S. attorney in Boston, the head of its criminal division, the head of the criminal division in Main Justice, and the director of the FBI during the most scandalous miscarriage of justice in the modern history of the FBI. Four innocent people were framed by the FBI to protect mass murdering gangsters who were working as FBI informers while they were killing innocent people. An FBI agent, who is now in prison, was tipping off Whitey Bulger as to who might testify against him so that these individuals could be killed. He also tipped off Bulger, allowing him to escape and remain on the lam for 16 years. What responsibility, if any, did Mueller, who was in key positions of authority and capable of preventing these horrible miscarriages, have in this sordid incident? Comey Joins Stormy as Latest Porn Star to Target Trump. First, he made a devastating case for prosecuting Hillary Clinton for her reckless disregard for national secrets using her illegal bathroom email server. Yet, in the same press conference, announced he was giving her a pass on all of her crimes. We have since learned that he and the entire cabal of Clinton cronies at the FBI and Department of Justice rigged not only that investigation but also the separate investigation into the Clinton Foundation. Remember, the Clinton Foundation investigation centered on compelling evidence that the Clinton Cartel was using the foundation for a global shakedown and extortion racket. They were raking in hundreds of millions in "speaking fees" and other donations in exchange for favors that could be performed far into the future — assuming, of course, that Hillary Clinton was a shoo-in for the White House. Catherine Herridge Confirms Lisa Page Statements Contradicted Andrew McCabe, Ultimately Leading to His Firing. Fox News Catherine Herridge reports today [4/5/2018], per her FBI investigative sources, it was an investigative interview with FBI Attorney Lisa Page, in July 2017, that contradicted FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and ultimately led to his firing. That revelation is exactly what we anticipated was the origin to Inspector General Michael Horowitz gaining the text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok. The issue is actually more stunning than presented. Why the FBI Is Dodging Nunes. It was reported recently that the FBI refuses to show Congressman Devin Nunes an unredacted copy of the origination document that triggered the probe into the Trump campaign. What is the FBI hiding? Paradoxically, nothing — that is, no classified information showing collusion between Trump and Russia. The FBI is simply trying to hide the embarrassingly partisan origins of its spying on the Trump campaign. Were the redactions covering material harmful to Trump, that material would have been leaked by now. So the redactions can only be concealing the fingerprints of Hillary's partisans in the Obama administration. Andrew McCabe's Wife Falsely Claims He 'Kept Himself Separate' From Her State Senate Campaign. Jill McCabe, the wife of former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, falsely claimed in a Monday [4/2/2018] op-ed that her husband "kept himself separate" from her state senate campaign. McCabe, who ran in 2015 as a Democrat for a Virginia State Senate seat, said the last year and a half have been a "nightmare" for her and her family because of "twisted reporting and presidential tweets." She wrote in her Washington Post op-ed that she is now, however, free to speak out because her husband is no longer at the FBI. The "accidental politician" highlighted how she and her husband met, her career in the medical field, and various aspects of her state senate campaign in 2015, including her support from former Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D.) and her husband's role in the campaign. Ms. McCabe, Andrew Did Not Separate Himself From Your VA Senate Run, He Used His FBI Email To Campaign For You. [Scroll down] Oh yeah, this guy is getting railroaded, except that he's not. And it doesn't seem that stretching the truth falls far from the tree. His wife, Jill, a doctor, penned an op-ed in The Post about her failed 2015 Virginia Senate run and how there was no conflict of interest. There have been allegations that McCabe's donations from pro-Clinton Gov. Terry McAuliffe's PAC during that run, which exceeded $400,000, was a sort of down payment for political protection since soon after her campaign ended, Mr. McCabe became deputy director, where one of his tasks was to oversee the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email fiasco. Justice Dept. charges Minnesota FBI agent for leaking secret document to news outlet. A former Minneapolis FBI agent who sought to expose what he called "systemic biases" within the bureau has been charged after allegedly leaking secret documents to a national news reporter, according to federal criminal charges filed in Minnesota this week. The charges, filed by prosecutors for the Justice Department's National Security Division, are the first to come in Minnesota since Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a broad crackdown on government leaks last year. A two-page felony information, a charging document that typically signals an imminent guilty plea, outlines two counts filed against Terry James Albury of unlawfully disclosing and retaining national defense information. FBI Agent Charged For Doing Exactly What James Comey Admitted To Doing. An FBI agent was charged for doing the exact same thing as former FBI Director James Comey, according to the Washington Times. The Justice Department has filed charges against Terry Albury for allegedly leaking classified documents to a news media outlet. The FBI Gets The Attention Of The AG And Courts Over Ignoring Subpoenas. Morale Possibly Ruined. Late last week, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte hit Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein with a subpoena for documents related to several investigations, such as the Clinton email investigation. What brought this on was stonewalling of the committee's document requests by the FBI. House subpoena rattles Justice Department; Sessions 'angry' at slow response. The FBI is promising swift action on a House subpoena covering three politically charged investigations after word that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has grown angry with the bureau's slow-walking of congressional requests for information. Last week the House Judiciary Committee sent a subpoena to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein demanding documents from the Justice Department and the FBI "regarding charging decisions in the investigation surrounding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email server, potential abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility recommendation to fire former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe," according to a committee press release. Did The FBI *Cause* Pulse? So once again we have outrageous prosecutorial misconduct. Specifically, the prosecution had an obligation to disclose this during discovery before the trial began, and did not. But the better question here is whether the FBI knew that the shooting was going to take place, was being planned, and deliberately ignored it or worse, even egged it on. Was the FBI's Investigation of Hillary Clinton a 'Sham'? This should be big news. In fact, this should have led the evening news on Sunday night, and there should be some kind of media investigation of this planned today, but there wasn't, and there won't be. The reason this story didn't lead the news yesterday, and that the media won't be investigating it today (or ever) is because it doesn't fit the liberal narrative. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) appeared on the Fox News Channel Sunday morning to continue his call for a second special counsel to investigate the FBI's behavior during the 2016 elections. House Judiciary Committee Subpoenas 1.2M Documents Reviewed by DOJ IG. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has run out of patience with the U.S. Justice Department and is now subpoenaing 1.2 million DOJ documents, including decisions made by former FBI Director James Comey not to prosecute former Secretary of State Clinton and other matters leading up to and beyond the 2016 election. The DOJ inspector-general also is investigating the FBI's handling of the Clinton case. "Well, we want to see everything that the inspector general has seen, which is, we understand, about 1.2 million documents," Goodlatte told Fox News's Neil Cavuto on Monday. He said the documents are critical to his committee's oversight of the FBI and DOJ. DOJ: Inspector General Examining Whether McCabe Was Promised Promotion to FBI Director by Hillary Clinton. Andrew McCabe may have revealed to his inner circle an inside plan to replace his friend James Comey as FBI director if and when Hillary Clinton was elected president of the United States, according to top officials in the Justice Department. [...] If those discussions about a promotion to FBI director with co-workers and McCabe's inner circle were anything more than bravado, that certainly is troubling. And given the fact that McCabe's wife Jill was given more than $1.25 million in Hillary-backed campaign donations to run for state senate in Virginia, it could spell additional legal woes for her husband. McCabe was in charge of the Hillary Clinton email investigation at the FBI at the same time his wife ran for office. At the same time he and his wife struck a deal to run for office with Hillary consigliere and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who was allegedly under investigation at the time by the FBI for a public corruption case. Documents: FBI Carefully Planned Clinton-Lynch Tarmac Trip, Tried To Cover It Up. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under director James Comey carefully plotted logistics and security for President Bill Clinton's meeting on an airplane tarmac with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch during the 2016 campaign. The FBI then attempted to cover up the tarmac meeting by targeting a Bureau whistleblower. The FBI worked with its offices around the country to execute the plan. FBI staffers knew warnings about Nikolas Cruz were related but closed the case, lawmakers learn. The FBI this week detailed to Congress a series of mistakes and missed opportunities to intervene before a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida — including a revelation that staffers knew two warnings about suspect Nikolas Cruz were related, but still closed the case. FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich made the comments in a closed briefing Tuesday with members of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees. In a summary released Wednesday [3/7/2018] to Fox News, Bowdich cited two tips that the FBI received about Cruz in September 2017 and January 2018 that were mishandled. FBI Paid Best Buy Technicians to Inform Them about Illegal Content on Customer Devices. The FBI recruited computer technicians at Best Buy to inform them about illegal content on personal devices customers brought in for repairs, new Bureau documents show. The informants were discovered after Best Buy's Geek Squad technicians at a Kentucky repair shop found thousands of child-pornography images on California doctor Mark Rettenmaier's computer. The documents from the ensuing court case showed that eight informants were cooperating with the FBI to turn over illegal content. Best Buy Gave Obama FBI [a] Tour of [a] Geek Squad Facility [and the] FBI Paid Employees As Informants. Well isn't this interesting? The FBI was given it's [sic] own private tour of the Best Buy "Geek Squad" computer repair facilities during the Obama and Comey days. This was done back in September of 2016, at the height of the election season. We'll wait (and wait and wait) to see if Mr. Magoo Jeff Sessions or his boss Rod Rosenstein do anything about this. FBI agent Peter Strzok was told of possible breach into Clinton's server but didn't follow up, sources say. During the final months of the Clinton email investigation, FBI agent Peter Strzok was advised of an irregularity in the metadata of Hillary Clinton's server that suggested a possible breach, but there was no significant follow up, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter. Sources told Fox News that Strzok, who sent anti-Trump text messages that got him removed from the ongoing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe, was told about the metadata anomaly in 2016, but Strzok did not support a formal damage assessment. Australian diplomat whose tip prompted FBI's Russia-probe has tie to Clintons. The Australian diplomat whose tip in 2016 prompted the Russia-Trump investigation previously arranged one of the largest foreign donations to Bill and Hillary Clinton's charitable efforts, documents show. Former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer's role in securing $25 million in aid from his country to help the Clinton Foundation fight AIDS is chronicled in decade-old government memos archived on the Australian foreign ministry's website. John Solomon: FBI Never Told Congress Aussie Diplomat Whose Tip Triggered Russia Probe Is Linked To Clinton Foundation. According to a new report, the FBI failed to brief Congressional investigators on ties between former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, the diplomat whose tip prompted the Russia probe, with the Clinton Foundation. Indicted Russians. That's It? The Russians spent some money buying Americans to demonstrate? Or just found kindred spirits online to do it free? [...] Or, Americans made "false statements" to FBI investigators when, as in the Flynn debacle, the bureau had already said there were no lies? That's the output thus far from Team Mueller with regard to their mission to investigate whether there was Russian meddling in our presidential election in 2016, and whether Americans "colluded" with the Russians in such endeavors. So far, we haven't seen anyone indicted for such matters, but we do see truly shocking and genuinely dangerous corruption among the investigators and the enforcers. Nunes: FBI may have violated criminal statutes in FISA application to spy on Trump adviser Carter Page. The FBI may have violated criminal statutes, as well as its own strict internal procedures, by using unverified information during the 2016 election to obtain a surveillance warrant on onetime Trump campaign aide Carter Page, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee charged Thursday [3/1/2018] in a letter obtained by Fox News. House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., wrote in his letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions that "in this instance, it's clear that basic operating guidance was violated." Nunes cited the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (DIOG), which was created by the bureau and approved by the Justice Department, to say he believed the FBI violated procedures requiring verified and documented evidence in applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. FBI Denies Secret Comey-Obama Meeting[,] Raises Integrity and Public Trust Issues. The FBI states it will not expedite the release of documents about secret meetings between FBI Director James Comey and former President Barack Obama, according to a letter the bureau sent to The Daily Caller News Foundation. Such information is not "a matter of widespread and exceptional media interest in which there exists possible questions about the government's integrity which affects public confidence," David Hardy, the section chief for the bureau's Record/Information Dissemination Section, told TheDCNF in a Feb. 26 letter. TheDCNF, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), requested records of all meetings between Comey and Obama and sought an "expedited process" as provided under the act when issues are of great interest to the media and the records address issues pertaining to government integrity. TheDCNF FOIA request was filed Feb. 16, 2018. Assault On The Constitution. I'm a former TV news reporter in Washington, DC. I wrote and produced these reports utilizing many sources including the Conservative Treehouse and the government documents it's published. This report focuses on the Obama administration's Illegal spying of the Trump Campaign. It includes discussion of the FISA warrant and the House and Senate investigations of the executive branch's misleading search warrant application to the FISA Court. Former U.S. attorney Joseph diGenova says he expects former top FBI officials to be charged criminally. [Video clip] The Shocking History Of Sexual Misconduct Within James Comey's FBI. The Department of Justice's inspector general sanctioned at least 14 FBI agents and officials for a range of improper sexual acts since 2014, and most of the misconduct occurred during former FBI Director James Comey's term, The Daily Caller News Foundation has determined. The public got a glimpse into the bureau's sexual mischief when it was disclosed high-profile FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok were cheating on their spouses. Special counsel Robert Mueller dumped Page from his investigation on Russian collusion and later removed Strzok after he learned of their relationship. But it turns out sexual misconduct within the bureau went much further than cheating spouses. FBI was told by someone close to Nikolas Cruz that "he's so into ISIS". This doesn't mean that Cruz was an Islamic jihadi. It means that he saw their bloodlust, and admired it. An organization that glories in violence and murder is going to attract people of like mind. And if that organization justifies itself by reference to the teachings of a major religion, this kind of thing is going to keep on happening. The FBI, of course, did nothing. FBI bureaucratic failures and willful blindness rack up a horrifying body count. After [a young man] gunned down 17 people at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, FBI special agent Robert Lasky, head of the bureau's Miami division, said he "truly regrets" the pain caused by the FBI's failure to act on a tip about the shooter. The FBI said it had no way to trace the tip, then FBI boss Christopher Wray said the message was never passed on to the FBI's Miami field office, as official protocol required. Relatives of the victims might have noted the passive verb construction. In typical style, Wray failed to name the person who never passed on the tip, and offered no explanation why that person might have done so. [...] Who are the FBI agents, and their bosses, who looked the other way in the Fort Hood, Boston Marathon and Orlando terrorist attacks? What, exactly, are they doing now? As in the Florida high-school shooting, the victims and their loved ones deserve some answers. Does the FBI really have anyone investigating tipoffs about school shooters? As if it couldn't soil itself more in the wake of its flawed Russian investigation scandal targeting Donald Trump, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is in hot water again, this time over its failure to act on at least two very specific tipoffs about the Parkland, Florida school spray shooter, who murdered 17 people in cold blood. [...] This tipoff failure follows an earlier one, from an Alabama bail bondsman, who sent email to the FBI about the gunman's plans, posted on YouYube, of becoming "a professional school shooter," which bounced back. After that, the bail bondsman called the FBI local field office, whose agents promised him they'd "look into it." They didn't. Here's a list of recent attacks the FBI missed despite 'significant warning signs beforehand'. The Washington Free Beacon's Stephen Gutowski put Here's a list of recent attacks the FBI missed despite 'significant warning signs beforehand' together a list of recent attacks that the FBI missed despite "significant warning signs," and it's quite disturbing. The FBI looks like the Federal Bureau of Incompetence after ignoring warning about Florida gunman. Wasn't there something eerily and disgracefully familiar about the news that the FBI had a highly specific warning about the murderous intentions of [...] the gunman who has confessed to shooting and killing 14 students and three adults at a Florida high school Wednesday? Doesn't it remind you of the way that after nearly every single one of the Islamist terror attacks of the last few years — whether in America, in Britain or elsewhere — a devastating phrase soon emerges? The attacker was "known to the authorities." Congressman calls Trump 'psychopath' for saying out loud what rational-minded Americans are thinking about FBI. Democrats have become so unhinged over their hatred for President Donald Trump that they think nothing of calling the commander in chief a "psychopath." Case in point, U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who took great exception to Trump saying out loud what most rational minded Americans are already thinking when it comes to the FBI. Florida shooting shows not to rely on the FBI. People are asking why didn't the FBI follow up on the tips about the gunman who went on to kill 17 people at a high school in Florida? That's the wrong question. We should ask: why didn't the tipsters report their suspicions to the local police or sheriff's office? One Organization Has Blood On Their Hands: It's the FBI. Leftists and the media can complain and whine all they want about the NRA, Trump or Republicans in Congress. Problem is, there is really one government organization in this country that has yet more blood dripping for their hands after the Parkland shooting. It's not the NRA, it's the pathetic, partisan, FBI. All the warning signs were there [...]. All the social media posts with wanting to be a "professional school shooter" and such were available for everyone to see on Youtube. Instead, the FBI couldn't be bothered with [the shooter] because they had more important things to do. The FBI Admits They Screwed Up. But They're So Sorry. Well, guess what, everyone — the FBI is finally admitting they dropped the ball on [the Florida] high school shooter [...]. This kid left a trail of breadcrumbs a mile long, and yet law enforcement just said, "Meh." It's so egregious that Florida Gov. Rick Scott is now calling for the FBI director to resign. On Friday [2/16/2018], the FBI said that just last month — let that sink in — a person close to [the shooter] contacted them. The information the caller told the FBI was ominous. [The shooter] not only owned a gun, but he expressly said that he wanted to kill people, and school shootings seemed to be a thing with him. The caller reported this on January 5th, and yet the FBI did nothing. FBI Received a Credible Tip about Florida Shooter. Did Nothing. "We need to do more to prevent gun violence" crows every rube with brains consisting of mainly sawdust. The "do more" typically takes the form of "more government intervention." [...] We already have background checks. We already have law enforcement. We already have agencies tasked with investigating crime and credible threats. Law enforcement and the FBI failed here. Resulting in the gunman passing a background check. So, if law enforcement and the FBI had done that which they're tasked with doing, isn't it possible to conclude Nikolas Cruz would've failed a background check? Thereby would not have purchased guns legally? The FBI Keeps Missing Mass Shooters Before It's Too Late. Revelations that the FBI had been warned about [the] Florida high school shooter [...] fit an all-too-familiar pattern, in which apparent law enforcement errors have preceded mass murders. A person close to [the shooter] warned the the FBI last month that he had a "desire to kill people" and could carry out a school shooting, the FBI admitted on Friday [2/16/2018]. The agency failed to act on the tip. The FBI was also warned about [the shooter] after he posted on YouTube saying he was going to become a "professional school shooter." The agency said they couldn't identify the user who made the threat, despite [the shooter] posting under his own name. Say Something, Do Nothing — FBI Statement On Parkland Florida School Shooting. The FBI released a stunning admission today admitting they received prior a specific warning about Broward County Nikolas Cruz and his threats to carry out a school shooting. The FBI took no action. What Do We Do about the Biased and Incompetent FBI? It's bad enough for a law enforcement agency to be biased. It's even worse for it to be biased and incompetent. But the latter seems to be an apt characterization of our Federal Bureau of Investigation in the wake of the killings in Parkland, Florida, where, by their own admission, the organization overlooked warnings about the killer that could have saved seventeen students and teachers from mass murder. This is no mere bureaucratic slip-up and the demand by Governor Scott for the resignation of FBI Director Wray is understandable considering the number of dead children in his state. The incompetence, moreover, is not just restricted to Parkland. It pervades an institution that — frequently blinded by the most rote political correctness — interviewed and then released terrorists who ultimately perpetrated horrific attacks from the Boston Marathon to the Orlando nightclub massacre. (There are several more.) Report: FBI Warned About Potential School Shooter in September. The FBI was notified in September after a YouTube user [...] left a comment about wanting to be a "professional school shooter," reports the far-left BuzzFeed News. Danny Casolaro. Danny Casolaro, an aspiring novelist, freelance writer and investigative reporter looking into the theft of Project PROMIS software, a program capable of tracking down anyone anywhere in the world, died in August 1991, a reported suicide. Casolaro was also investigating Pine Gap, Area 51 and governmental bioengineering. The Strange Death of Daniel Casolaro. In the weeks before his death Casolaro had spoken frequently about threats on his life. In fact, just before he left for Martinsburg he told his brother, "If anything happens to me, don't believe it's an accident." For reasons unknown, Casolaro's family wasn't notified of his death until two days after his body was discovered. And by that time, his body had already been embalmed illegally. Additionally, the hotel almost immediately brought in an industrial cleaning company to sanitize the room, thereby greatly diminishing any opportunity for an independent forensic investigation. Justice Department changes the FBI's story on Danny Casolaro's file. The Department of Justice appears to have retroactively declared that 98% of the FBI file on the journalist Danny Casolaro was and still is missing, despite the FBI seeming to say they had found it. Having previously released only a handful of documents which indicated the FBI misled Congress about investigating Casolaro's suspicious death, with other documents from the DOJ hinting at interference and a cover-up, the DOJ has rewritten the FBI's explanation for not releasing 1,350 pages from Casolaro's FBI file. Despite the FBI having twice written that the files were found, the DOJ now says that the files are missing and always were. As the chain of events appear to defy explanation, they are offered as-is and without an attempt to explain. News items that have not yet been categorized The FBI Spying Denial That Never Grows Cold. Four years after the FBI sent "Confidential Human Sources" secretly to gather information on Donald Trump's team, the president's opponents in politics and the media continue to deny that the bureau spied on his 2016 campaign. They are now using that denial to dismiss questions of voting irregularities in the 2020 election by arguing that Trump and his allies traffic in outrageous falsehoods for partisan purposes. [...] This might appear at first glance to be a debate about semantics, a question of whether to call surveillance "spying" or something with less negative overtones, such as "intelligence-gathering." Either way, it has been verified that the FBI took the extraordinary step of investigating an ongoing campaign for the presidency. It has also been verified that the bureau drew on its complete arsenal, including wiretaps and secret agents — both in-house "Undercover Employees" and contract operatives called "Confidential Human Sources." Though the FBI doesn't use the word "spy" to describe its own activities, the bureau's actions fit definitions of spying, old and new. Who Killed Philip Haney? In Amador County, California, on February 21, Philip Haney, author of See Something Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government's Submission to Jihad, was found dead from a single gunshot wound. News reports suggested suicide but the local sheriff found "this is not the case." The death of Haney, 66, was a homicide, the unlawful killing of one person by another. The Amador County sheriff had no suspects but did find some clues. Deputies recovered "numerous thumb drives and a laptop" from the crime scene, and "those items and numerous other pieces of evidence, were turned over to the FBI." The sheriff "hopes to complete our review of the reports and compare the FBI's analysis with what we have already collected and analyzed within a few weeks after receipt." That was on July 22, and a week after the November 3 election, nearly eight months after the homicide, the FBI "analysis" has not come to light. Biden's Laptop Problem. [Scroll down] The FBI's handling of the Hunter Biden hard drive and laptop, of which they took possession some ten months ago, tells us all we need to know. In fact, we probably wouldn't have known of the FBI possession of this evidence, unless reported by the [New York] Post or some other reputable media source. The information on that hard drive could have abbreviated and ended the politically motivated congressional impeachment coup that preoccupied Washington at that time. Crickets on that from the FBI. But more important and more disturbing: Why was there no action from the FBI when that hard drive provided clear and voluminous evidence of high-level Chinese Communist Party involvement with Hunter Biden and his partners and by implication the potential blackmail of Joe Biden that could compromise American security? Clearly the Deep State is alive and well in the FBI and the DoJ of which it is a part. How Serious Is The FBI's Biden Inc. Investigation? Almost certainly very serious. In the Indian tribe fraud case in which two Hunter Biden associates were convicted (Devon Archer's conviction was very recently reinstated on appeal), a lot of evidence regarding these key Biden Inc. players was gathered. One is now cooperating from prison. Next question: What will Devon Archer do? Obviously what they have to offer to the government, their bargaining chips, all have to do with Biden Inc. And the Biden Inc. case is open. Ongoing. But they've had to wait for the hoped for cooperation, working the documentary trail of evidence while they wait. There's another indicator, and it's a significant one. [...] Reports: FBI Confirms Custody of Hunter Biden Laptop and Authenticity of Emails. According to late-breaking information from Fox News, the FBI has now confirmed the seizure of Hunter Biden's laptops and confirmed earlier DNI statements that Hunter Biden emails were not part of a Russia disinformation campaign. The FBI confirms possession of the computers which allegedly contain emails implicating former Vice-President Joe Biden in his son's international business dealings. This FBI confirmation comes 12 hours after President Trump requested attorney general Bill Barr 'act fast' and expressed support for an appointment of a special counsel. This Is How the Left's Power Structure Collapses. [Scroll down] What's the word for a media establishment that won't report this story? What's the word for the FBI having this laptop for almost a year, watching dispassionately as the Democrats impeached Trump with hard evidence in their hands of his innocence and the Bidens' guilt? What's the word for the above group of bad actors colluding to forward the Russia lies for almost three years? What's the word for Director Wray's involvement? What's the word for CIA director not releasing documents of the Russia hoax, documents that have been available for a long time? What's the all-encompassing word that has been revealed at the heart of all these colluding to hide the truth from an America that deserves to know? Corruption. FBI in possession of Hunter Biden's purported laptop, sources say. The FBI is in possession of the laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden which contained emails revealing his foreign business dealings, including contacts in Ukraine and China, two senior administration officials told Fox News Tuesday [10/20/2020]. The FBI declined to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation into the laptop or the emails, as is standard practice. Further, Fox News has learned that the FBI and Justice Department officials concur with an assessment from Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe that the laptop is not part of a Russian disinformation campaign targeting Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Johnson to Wray: Tell us everything about Hunter Biden's alleged laptop. Ron Johnson asks a good question, even if he may not like the eventual answer. Why didn't the FBI make the information on Hunter Biden's alleged laptop available to the House and Senate during the impeachment of Donald Trump? According to the New York Post, the hard drive contained information relating to the issue of potential corruption between the Bidens and Ukraine, the probe of which touched off impeachment in the first place. There are two possibilities, both of which the chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee shares with Fox's Maria Bartiromo: [Video clip] Sen. Johnson: Has the FBI had the Hunter Biden laptop material for ten months? A Senate Republican leader has raised new questions about the FBI's actions in the wake of news about alleged conflicts of interests involving former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter, and foreign influence and business opportunities. A whistleblower says that many months ago, he provided the FBI contents of a laptop computer once used by Hunter Biden. That's according to a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray sent today by Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.). The letter states that an unnamed whistleblower contacted Sen. Johnson's committee on September 24, a day after the committee released its investigation into alleged Biden conflicts of interest. Conservatism Now Means Defeating the Establishment. [Scroll down] The FBI got the Hunter Biden computer about a year ago, a computer full of emails about the Democrat nominee's crack-curious son's adventures in influence peddling with Ukrainian robber barons and the Chi-Coms, and if some computer repair guy in New Jersey hadn't thought to keep a copy of the contents the FBI would have deep-sixed the hard drive just like it did Weiner's laptop in service of their Establishment masters. In fact, leakers are leaking that it's the Russians at it again in order to actively and willfully cover up the biggest corruption story in American history. 'You just made the connection': Top senator asked if FBI investigated child pornography on Hunter Biden's laptop. A top Republican senator acknowledged the possibility that the FBI investigated whether there was child pornography on a laptop and hard drive that allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden. Journalist Maria Bartiromo asked Sen. Ron Johnson, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, about a Business Insider report that described faint handwriting on a subpoena served last year to a Delaware business that was given a water-damaged MacBook Pro to repair but was never retrieved and a hard drive with its contents. The hardware purportedly contained data about foreign business dealings and other matters related to the son of former Vice President Joe Biden. The subpoena appeared to show the FBI agent who served it was someone named "Joshua Wilson." [...] "I think you just made the connection. Again, this is what the FBI, I think, has to come clean about," the Wisconsin Republican said in his first reply. Johnson was alluding to his letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray about the laptop sent last week. Why Is The FBI's Top Child Porn Lawyer Involved In Hunter Biden Laptop Case? The recent New York Post bombshell reports on Hunter Biden's alleged laptop contents included a curious piece of evidence -- a photograph of an FBI subpoena which bears the signature of the agency's top child porn investigator, special agent Joshua Wilson. According to the Post, a laptop was dropped off at a Delaware computer repair shop by a man believed by the owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, to be Hunter Biden. The shop owner made a copy of the hard drive before turning it over to the FBI, which includes incriminating emails detailing alleged Biden family corruption in Ukraine and China, as well as a 'raunchy, 12-minute video that appears to show Hunter smoking crack while engaged in a sex act with an unidentified woman,' as well as 'numerous other sexually explicit images.' FBI agent Wilson's identity was confirmed by both Western Journal and Business Insider, the latter of which compared his signature to a 2012 criminal complaint and concluded that it "clearly matches the unreversed signature on the subpoena published by the New York Post." The FBI Is Investigating Hunter Biden, but the Reason Will Make You Angry. As RedState has been covering extensively, Hunter Biden's emails have laid out more evidence of influence peddling and corruption among Joe Biden and his son. Former denials have been blown up as it appears certain that the former VP was well aware of what his son was doing. The latest email drop even asserts that Joe Biden was getting monetary kickbacks. To say this is a big scandal is an understatement, regardless of whether the media want to cover it or not. Meanwhile, another part of this was that the FBI has supposedly had this information since last year. Now, we know they are investigating, but it's for the most ridiculous, yet predictable reason you could imagine. Instead of looking into whether laws were broken by the corruption of Joe and Hunter Biden, the FBI is hot on the case of whether the emails are "Russian misinformation." Did the FBI Sit on a Computer Containing Evidence of Hunter Sex Tape and Biden Burisma Corruption? One of the strangest details of the exclusive New York Post story involving the recovered data from a computer linked to Hunter Biden is the story of the laptop itself and what is alleged about it. You can read about the evidence alleging that Hunter Biden was trading influence with foreign actors in Matt Margolis's piece here. But what also interested me was the part of the NYP investigation where they claim there's a sex tape and pornographic photos starring Hunter on the laptop — and the FBI knew about it in December. [...] Let's forget for a moment that there's reportedly a video of Hunter Biden smoking crack and romping with hookers on the laptop. That's par for the course, isn't it? What about the part where the FBI had possession of this information back in December? Why didn't the FBI come forward with this evidence about Hunter Biden's emails, which appear to show collusion and influence-trading? Isn't that something they should have told the president or members of Congress? House Republicans Ask Director Wray if FBI Was in Possession of Hunter Biden's Laptop During Trump Impeachment and Hid Evidence from Trump Defense. House Republicans on Thursday sent a letter to Director Chris Wray asking if the FBI was in possession of Hunter Biden's laptop during the impeachment coup of President Trump. "If the FBI was, in fact, in possession of this evidence and failed to alert the White House to its existence that would have given even more weight to the president's legal defense, this was a gross error in judgement and a severe violation of trust," the letter says. How CIA tried to wave FBI off Trump-Russia conspiracy as it pointed the finger at Hillary Clinton. The CIA wrote a highly classified three-page memo to FBI Director James B. Comey and agent Peter Strzok telling them that 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had approved a plan to blame Russian computer hacking on rival Donald Trump. The Washington Times obtained a copy of the heavily redacted memo sent to the FBI on Sept. 7, 2016, weeks after Mr. Strzok had opened the Crossfire Hurricane probe into the Trump campaign on suspicion of conspiring with the Kremlin. Then-CIA Director John O. Brennan wrote in notes that Mrs. Clinton allegedly approved the plan, one declassified document shows. FBI Stonewalls Over Hunter Biden; Refuses To Provide Congress Answers On Burisma, China. The FBI is stonewalling a congressional inquiry into Hunter Biden's overseas business activity described in a Senate report last month which chronicles the Biden family's international conflicts of interest, as well as potentially criminal business activity, according to The Federalist. The Senate report detailed Hunter's financial dealings with Ukrainian, Chinese and Russian businesses created potential "criminal financial, counterintelligence and extortion concerns," and alarmed US officials who perceived an ethical conflict of interest and flagged potential crimes ranging from sex trafficking to bribery. Basta! Time to Dismantle the FBI. Fox's Sean Hannity [...] has long been in the forefront of the fight to expose the Trump-Russia probe which, we learn increasingly virtually every day, was even more immoral, seditious, and anti-American than we had imagined. [...] But Sean H. evidently made one, I regret to say serious, mistake, probably because he's basically a nice guy from a law enforcement family. He insisted all along that the problems in the FBI were only at the top, the so-called "Seventh Floor," the domain of Comey, Strzok, McCabe, and the others. Unfortunately, no. Also just revealed after three years are 302s (near-contemporaneous notes made after an interview) and texts that show lower-ranking FBI agents too were aware of the malfeasances that were occurring in the early stages of the Michael Flynn case. In fact these agents were so alarmed they were considering professional liability insurance lest they be sued for the dishonest — one could even say treasonous — activities in which they were being forced to participate. Frankly, I never imagined a FBI agent could even buy such insurance. The implications are unpatriotic on their face. But live and learn. It's interesting too, given the nervous chatter among themselves, not one of these agents became a whistleblower. Stunning revelations expose FBI's Trump probe as dirtiest political trick in US history. It was always a witch hunt designed to "get Trump." Collusion was an illusion invented by a suspected Russian spy but zealously embraced by malevolent actors at the FBI and later by scheming prosecutors on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team of partisans. These are the stunning revelations contained in two sets of newly declassified documents that pull back the curtain on the Russia Hoax, the dirtiest political trick in American history. In testimony that is corroborated by records, FBI Special Agent William J. Barnett has exposed how the bureau's collusion investigation of Donald Trump was based on nothing more than "supposition on supposition" and devoid of any credible evidence. FBI agent Interview Reveals Bias Driving Investigations of Flynn, Trump. An FBI agent who worked on the investigation of Michael Flynn and Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into "Russia collusion" told investigators that prosecutors had a "get TRUMP" attitude that distorted their inquiry into the facts. The Department of Justice released the record Thursday of a recent FBI interview with Special Agent William Barnett as part of its motion to drop the charges against Flynn. Judge Emmet Sullivan has resisted efforts by the DOJ to drop the charges. Flynn originally pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, but withdrew that plea as exculpatory evidence emerged. A review of the case by U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Jensen uncovered more exculpatory evidence, but Sullivan refused to allow the case to drop. Explosive New FBI Texts Detail Internal Furor Over Handling Of 'Crossfire Hurricane' Investigation. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents tasked by fired former Director James Comey to take down Donald Trump during and after the 2016 election were so concerned about the agency's potentially illegal behavior that they purchased liability insurance to protect themselves less than two weeks before Trump was inaugurated president, previously hidden FBI text messages show. The explosive new communications and internal FBI notes were disclosed in federal court filings today from Sidney Powell, the attorney who heads Michael Flynn's legal defense team. "[W]e all went and purchased professional liability insurance," one agent texted on Jan. 10, 2017, the same day CNN leaked details that then-President-elect Trump had been briefed by Comey about the bogus Christopher Steele dossier. Apple helps FBI track down protester accused of firebombing cop cars. Anyone who believes Apple and the FBI are at an impasse over investigations into the iPhone maker's criminal customers should think again. In Seattle, Apple has given the feds vital evidence from one of its iCloud users who was arrested for firebombing cop cars during the George Floyd protests in late May. The case shows how Apple is willing to help even where the context of the crime is controversial, namely the Black Lives Matter protests. That's despite President Trump and Attorney General William Barr lambasting the company for failing to help track down serious criminals while caving in to the demands of the Chinese government. Their comments came after Apple said it wouldn't help the government get into the physical iPhones of a Saudi national who shot and killed three on a Pensacola, Florida, naval base in December 2019. (The FBI hacked into the phones anyway.) A Tyranny Perpetual and Universal? [Scroll down] Consider also the incredible abuses of power from the Justice Department, the FBI, the intelligence community, and other agencies. Even with Trump in the White House, the administrative state still does whatever it wants while hampering the lawful directives of the elected chief executive. So long as their targets are in the disfavored party, they can spy on American citizens — up to and including presidential candidates — lie to and entrap public officials, extort plea deals from the innocent, and leak highly classified information for political purposes. (This is, needless to say, a very partial list.) They get away with all this scot-free: no punishment, no correction, no rebuke. They not only pay no price for shredding the Constitution and violating myriad statutes, but they are also lionized: the entire media and commentariat cheer them on. The fix is in, and has been for some time, but we still pretend we live in the age of Eliot Ness, the incorruptible G-man. FBI Lawyer's Guilty Plea Suggests Spygate Corruption Goes Way Higher. Last week's guilty plea by Kevin Clinesmith represents the first concrete evidence of movement in U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation into the Russia collusion hoax. The plea agreement, which was released on Wednesday, suggests another area ripe for inquiry: FBI Agent Stephen Somma's earlier misrepresentation of former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page's status to those preparing the initial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications to surveil Page. Clinesmith, who served as an assistant general counsel in the National Security and Cyber Law Branch of the FBI's Office of General Counsel, admitted in his plea agreement that he had added the phrase "was not a source" to an email from an unidentified governmental agency, most likely the CIA, concerning Page's "operation contact" with that agency. Former FBI Attorney Kevin Clinesmith Made Andrew Weissmann's Nightmares Come True By Pleading Guilty. Clinesmith is charged with having altered the contents of an email from a CIA Liason on the subject of whether Carter Page had a historical relationship with the CIA. In April 2017, the existence of a FISA warrant against Page had been leaked to the press by a Senate official working for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. With the press reporting that he was suspected of being a Russian Agent, Page began giving interviews to address the question and disclosed that for several years he had been reporting to the CIA on his contacts with suspected Russian intelligence officials. In fact, in 2013 Page had cooperated with the FBI in the identification, investigation, and prosecution of three such Russian intelligence officers. While preparing the third application to extend the Page FISA warrant, an FBI supervisor tasked Clinesmith to contact the CIA and find out if there was any truth to the statements Page was making in the press. Sketchy Business — Clinesmith Agreement Structured to Avoid Scrutiny Upon Special Counsel. Remember, the Special Counsel was appointed in May 2017, and from then until April 2019 any matter which had anything to do with Spygate or Trump/Russia, was managed exclusively by the Special Counsel team. The Carter Page FISA warrant of June 29, 2017, was renewed during the tenure of the Special Counsel. They alone ran the FISA process for the third renewal. Kevin Clinesmith's boss at the FBI during the period was Trisha Beth Anderson. The Clinesmith criminal indictment (actually an "information") informs that, while the Special Counsel was running the DOJ, and Andy McCabe was running the FBI, McCabe's deputy at the FBI, Tricia Anderson, made this request to Clinesmith: ["]We need some clarification on [Carter Page]. There is an indication that he may be a '[digraph] source.'["] Why is this "digraph" redacted from the Clinesmith information? Clinesmith Gets The Wolfe Plea Deal. As noted in the DOJ press release: "Former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith, 38, pleaded guilty today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to a false statement offense stemming from his altering of an email in connection with the submission of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ("FISA") application." Despite the falsification of court documents within a FISA document; and despite the likelihood of an intentional conspiracy to commit fraud upon the court in order to obtain a Title-1 surveillance warrant against the Trump campaign — via Carter Page; the DOJ entered into a plea agreement on a single count of lying to federal officers. The agreement holds a maximum penalty of zero to six months in federal prison and a $250k fine. This is the same plea agreement the DOJ (DC U.S. Attorney) previously gave to the Senate Intelligence Committee Security Director James Wolfe, who leaked the SAME, earlier, top-secret classified FISA application to the media on March 17, 2017. Peter Strzok Lashes Out at John Durham As Kevin Clinesmith Pleads Guilty to One Charge of Making False Statements. Fired FBI Counter-intel chief Peter Strzok lashed out at US Attorney from Connecticut John Durham on Wednesday as former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith pleaded guilty to one charge of making false statements. In order to save himself, Clinesmith has implicated others on Crossfire Hurricane — who ultimately hid the exculpatory information from the FISA court? Perhaps Peter Strzok is a little nervous he may be next? Will the Dam Break After Clinesmith's Plea? News reports have downplayed the significance of former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith's guilty plea, acknowledging he altered an official document in the government's Trump-Russia collusion probe. There has been some coverage, mainly because it is so rare to see FBI agents charged with a felony and because it is the first tangible result of U.S. Attorney John Durham's sprawling investigation of the investigators. But mainstream news outlets have minimized its importance. It's only one count, they say, and it deals with a relatively minor crime by a mid-level figure. That's spin, and it's wrong. This plea is like finding water seeping from the base of a dam. The problem is not one muddy puddle. The problem is that it foreshadows the dam's failure, releasing a torrent. That's what the Clinesmith plea portends. Trump: Clinesmith Guilty Plea Is 'Just the Beginning' with 'More to Come'. President Trump on Friday [8/14/2020] said that news of former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith's plea deal with Department of Justice prosecutors was "just the beginning," signaling that U.S. Attorney John Durham is zeroing in on other targets in his investigation. Clinesmith is expected to plead guilty in connection with his alteration of an exonerating email during the Crossfire Hurricane (CH) investigation, which targeted members of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, including foreign policy adviser Carter Page. In 2016, the CIA sent the email to CH investigators in response to their inquiry about the status of Page's relationship with the CIA. Their response was not what the CH team was hoping for. Clinesmith Charging Documents: FBI Withheld Page's CIA Work From FISA Court, Then Lied About It. The FBI was told Carter Page was a U.S. intelligence agency source months before the agency began keeping that information from the secret court that authorized spying on him and nearly a full year before the agency altered documents to claim otherwise. Federal charging documents against Kevin Clinesmith, the top FBI attorney who was expected to plead guilty today to altering documents, show that the FBI withheld in three separate spying applications the fact that Page had served as an "operational contact" who helped an agency believed to be the CIA investigate suspected Russian intelligence figures for five years. For the fourth application, the agency didn't just hide that fact, but deliberately falsified evidence to claim he was not a source. Kevin Clinesmith, Corrupt FBI Attorney Who Falsified Carter Page FISA Warrant, Expected To Plead Guilty. A top FBI lawyer who fabricated evidence in a federal spy warrant against Trump campaign affiliate Carter Page is expected to plead guilty to federal charges brought by U.S. Attorney John Durham. Kevin Clinesmith, who is expected to admit to deliberately fabricating evidence in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant application, used to spy on a former campaign affiliate of President Donald Trump, was a top attorney in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Office of General Counsel (OGC) and a key agency attorney under fired former FBI Director James Comey. Clinesmith is the first individual to be charged as part of U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation into the efforts in 2016 and 2017 to spy on the Trump campaign and Trump administration. [...] Clinesmith's deliberate falsification of a federal spy warrant was first revealed last December following a lengthy investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG), headed by Michael Horowitz. Horowitz and his team wrote in a 434-page report that Clinesmith — identified in the report as "OGC Attorney" — altered an email from a separate U.S. federal agency, believed to be the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to falsely state that Page had never worked with the CIA to investigate suspected Russia agents operating within the U.S. In fact, as Clinesmith was told by the operative, Page had worked with the CIA previously, as well as with the FBI. Ex-F.B.I. Lawyer Expected to Plead Guilty in Durham Investigation. A former F.B.I. lawyer intends to plead guilty to falsifying a document as part of a deal with prosecutors conducting their own criminal inquiry of the Russia investigation, according to court documents made public on Friday [8/14/2020]. The lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, 38, who was assigned to the Russia investigation, plans to admit that he altered an email from the C.I.A. that investigators relied on to seek renewed court permission in 2017 for a secret wiretap on the former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who had at times provided information to the spy agency. Mr. Clinesmith's lawyers said he made a mistake while trying to clarify facts for a colleague. Mr. Clinesmith had written texts expressing opposition to President Trump, who is sure to tout the plea agreement as evidence that the Russia investigation was illegitimate and politically motivated. Durham probe: Ex-FBI lawyer to plead guilty in first criminal case arising from review, attorney says. Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith will plead guilty to making a false statement in the first criminal case arising from U.S. Attorney John Durham's review of the investigation into links between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign, two sources close to the matter tell Fox News. Clinesmith was referred for potential prosecution by the Justice Department's inspector general's office, which conducted its own review of the Russia investigation. Specifically, the inspector general accused Clinesmith, though not by name, of altering an email about former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page to say that he was "not a source" for another government agency. Page has said he was a source for the CIA. The DOJ relied on that assertion as it submitted a third and final renewal application in 2017 to eavesdrop on Page under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Russia Hoax: Are We All Being Played? Put Up or Shut Up. [Scroll down] I never realized how terrible the deterioration inside the system had become until four years ago when I stumbled onto what was happening inside the FBI. Those concerns were brought to my attention by former and current FBI agents, as well as numerous U.S. intelligence officials aware of the failures inside their own agencies. But it never occurred to me when I first started looking into fired FBI Director James Comey and his former side kick Deputy Director Andrew McCabe that the cultural corruption of these once trusted American institutions was so vast. I've watched as Washington D.C. elites make promises to get to the bottom of it and bring people to justice. They appear to make promises to the American people they never intended to keep. Who will be held accountable for one of the most egregious abuses of power by bureaucrats in modern American political history? Now I fear those who perpetuated this culture of corruption won't ever really be held accountable. These elite bureaucrats will, however, throw the American people a bone. It's how they operate. They expect us to accept it and then move on. Igor Dyachenko and a 34 Month Long DOJ/FBI Cover-Up Operation. CTH friend, researcher and producer John Spiropoulos helps connect the dots within the operation to cover-up corrupt activity by James Comey, Andrew McCabe, James Baker, Christopher Wray, Dana Boente and the entire special counsel group. In this video John walks us through the internal evidence showing how the FBI intentionally hid the statements by Christopher Steele's primary sub-source Igor Danchenko. The result: a 34 month cover-up operation. Did The FBI Mislead The Senate Intelligence Committee On The Steele Dossier? The Media Is Not Interested. The latest information comes from the Senate Intelligence Committee which released a declassified briefing report to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2018 on the Steele dossier's Primary Sub-source. It is hard to read the document linked below and not conclude that the FBI misled the Congress on the subject. This occurred after the FBI misled the FISA court, including the submission of falsified documents to continue the surveillance. The statement that most stands out from the briefing is that the Primary Sub-source "did not cite any significant concerns with the way his reporting was characterized in the dossier to the extent he could identify it." Keep in mind that this is a statement made in 2018. FBI agents had already warned that dossier author Christopher Steele may have been used by Russian intelligence to plant false information to disrupt the election. Indeed, Steele's allegations were quickly discredited by the FBI. In 2017, key agents were aware that the basis for the FISA applications were dubious and likely false. Yet it continued the investigation, and then someone leaked its existence to the media. Ron Johnson subpoenas FBI Director Wray in Crossfire Hurricane investigation. A top Republican senator subpoenaed FBI Director Christopher Wray on Monday to appear before the Senate and produce "all records" related to the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Russian election interference and allegations of Trump-Russia collusion. The subpoena, a copy of which was obtained by the Washington Examiner, includes a request for the documents the FBI handed over to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz for his damning report the surveillance of onetime Trump campaign associate Carter Page and the bureau's reliance on British ex-spy Christopher Steele's flawed dossier. Attkisson
v. Rosenstein for government computer intrusions. The following is an excerpt from the brief being filed today [8/3/2020] in
Maryland state court in Attkisson v. Rosenstein and others for the government computer intrusions. Plaintiff Sharyl
Attkisson, an award-winning journalist — along with her husband and child — have tried for years to pursue their significant and
credible claims of illegal government surveillance, but the U.S. Government has stonewalled them at every turn. Yet, despite
the Government's repeated efforts to obfuscate and delay, the Attkissons detailed in their Complaint:
Evidence Shows FBI Tried to Tie Citizen Trump to Epstein Case But with No Success. During the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein citizen Donald Trump's name came up. The FBI attempted over and over to tie the famous New York developer to misconduct, but to no avail. Per a review of documents released last night in the Jeffrey Epstein case, the FBI tried to tie the now deceased pedophile to citizen Donald Trump but were unable to do so. Tick, Tick, Boom, Boom, Time's Up, Obama Goons? James Comey and John Brennan routinely defend their assault on the peaceful transfer of power and their undermining of President Trump's legitimate election as those actions required by a "higher loyalty" to the institutions they once steered. Instead, they and the large group of political and permanent government saboteurs who have betrayed their country for the purpose of toppling a duly elected president have destroyed those institutions by their own hands. And even if Durham were to round up everyone involved, from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer James Wolfe and Joe Biden's Deep State mole Eric Ciaramella, the genie is out of the bottle. Justice delayed is justice denied. The horror we've witnessed unfolding before our eyes since before President Trump's inauguration will never be recast into anything remotely akin to "justice." Disgraced fired FBI officials Comey, McCabe and Strzok profit from a pathology of lies. Lying is pathology. Habitual liars do so compulsively, often to benefit themselves. The same is true of corrupt people. They seek to prosper from their corruption. For proof, look no further than the venal characters fired from the FBI after inventing the Trump-Russia collusion hoax — Director James Comey, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and Agent Peter Strzok. All three were fired for their abuse of power, corrupt acts, and suspected lies. Undaunted, they now profit financially from their misdeeds. Strzok is the latest to capitalize on his infamy. He is set to release a book in September titled "Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump." The irony should be lost on no one. Can you think of anyone more compromised than the notorious and smug Strzok? Declassified Documents Show FBI Used 'Defensive' Briefing In 2016 To Spy On Donald Trump. Newly declassified internal Federal Bureau of Investigation documents prove the top U.S. law enforcement agency used a so-called defensive briefing of the Trump campaign in 2016 to spy on and collect information about Donald Trump himself. The new documents, which are just the latest in a string of declassifications regarding the FBI operation to spy on the Trump campaign and later the Trump administration, detail the FBI's attempts to use a briefing ostensibly meant to warn the Trump campaign about foreign intelligence threats to spy on the Trump campaign itself. The documents were formally declassified by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on July 23 then provided to Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. New FBI Notes Re-Debunk Major NYT Story, Highlight Media Collusion To Produce Russia Hoax. The FBI official who ran the investigation into whether the Donald Trump campaign colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 presidential election privately admitted in newly released notes that a major New York Times article was riddled with lies, falsehoods, and "misleading and inaccurate" information. The February 2017 story was penned by three reporters who would win Pulitzers for their reporting on Trump's supposed collusion with Russia. The FBI's public posture and leaks at the time supported the now-discredited conspiracy theory that led to the formation of a special counsel probe to investigate the Trump campaign and undermine his administration. FBI Conspires Against Trump. As we continue uncovering details of the coup against President Trump by top Obama/Deep State officials, we've also noted the FBI and DOJ are still slow-rolling the release of information about the scandal. So, frustratingly slowly — but surely — we're getting piece after piece of the Obamagate puzzle. We received another batch of emails, 136 pages, between former FBI official Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page. They include heavily redacted emails showing Strzok, Page and top bureau officials in the days prior to and following President Donald Trump's inauguration discussing a White House counterintelligence briefing that could "play into" the FBI's "investigative strategy." The Mysterious Journey of an FBI Leak Investigation. In January of 2017 California Senator Dianne Feinstein abdicated her position as Vice-Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). Upon the initiation of a new congress, and two weeks before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, Virginia Senator Mark Warner took the SSCI Vice-Chair seat, and that's how things get started. Amid a concerted effort to resist the incoming administration the Russia Collusion Conspiracy was launched. Politicians, the U.S. intelligence apparatus and DC beltway media united in common purpose to push a Trump-Russia narrative. Within the early days of that effort, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence initiated an investigation into Russian interference with the election. FBI Refuses To Disclose Records On Source Who Undermined Steele Dossier. The FBI is refusing to release documents related to the primary source for dossier author Christopher Steele, saying in response to a public records request that the information is classified and risks identifying a confidential FBI source. The source, whose identity remains a mystery, holds key information that could shed light on apparent inaccuracies in Steele's dossier, which the FBI cited extensively in applications for surveillance orders against Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The decision, which the FBI made in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by The Daily Caller News Foundation, comes as Republican lawmakers have increasingly accused the FBI and its director, Christopher Wray, of withholding documents relevant to the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government. Stu Evans' Lonely, Failed Quest to Save the FBI From Itself. False accusations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia have already cost some of the most senior officials at the FBI and the Department of Justice their reputations, their careers, or both. The widespread wrongdoing raises the question: Where were the honest lawmen and women? Was there no one willing to challenge superiors — or even just colleagues — gone rogue? There may have been at least one. As deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Intelligence, Stuart Evans had the responsibility of vetting spy warrants before submitting them to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. In the fall of 2016, the FBI presented Evans with an application for a warrant to capture the communications of volunteer Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page. The main justification for getting a wire on Page were allegations by former British spy Christopher Steele. Instead of credulously embracing the Steele dossier as so many others did, Evans demanded more information about Steele. He put up bureaucratic roadblocks and manned them stubbornly while asking the essential questions no one else seemed to care about. No kidding. Fifth Redacted Name in Rosenstein's Scope Memo Identified as Walid Phares. An interesting new discovery amid revelations into the background motives of President Obama to weaponize the intelligence apparatus against his political opposition. [...] Today [6/18/2020] former Trump campaign foreign policy advisor Walid Phares identified himself as the fifth target in the August 2, 2017, Rosenstein scope memo. "Social Justice Warrior-ing" — Is That Now Taught at the FBI Academy? This story is actually being urged upon me, and I find myself a bit conflicted. At first, I tried to find a reason to sympathize with whatever predicament the FBI Agents found themselves that caused them to kneel down. There is conflicting reporting about whether the Agents kneeled in order to minimize the potential for confrontation with a much larger group of protesters who were calling for them to do so, or whether the Agents were, in fact, demonstrating sympathy for the views being expressed by the protesters. That was a story put out that was sourced to anonymous FBI officials. But the more I look at what happened, and the more agents I talk to, the more obvious it seems that someone in FBI management is trying to rescue these agents from the internal and external consequences of their horrendous judgment. After I watched the video which is embedded here, I struggled to see any coercion or compulsion for their actions. [Video clip] Democrats, Not Republicans, Protect Dirty Cops. Abuse and inequality — at the hands of American law enforcement — comes in all forms. [...] Calls for police reform and accountability are happening on a bipartisan basis. That has not been the case, however, when it comes to Obamagate. Democrats, led by the forked-tongue Schiff, have spent the past three years defending, even justifying, unprecedented abuses by the nation's top law enforcement chiefs related to their targeting of Donald Trump, his associates, and his family members. The Trump-related victims of James Comey's FBI may not be black, they were unfairly targeted nevertheless. It was not race that motivated their persecutors, nor was it any actual suspected wrongdoing. They were targeted because of their political views. It's Worse Than We Thought — DNI Ratcliffe Declassifies "Annex A" The Supportive Documents For 2017 Intel Community Assessment. DNI John Ratcliffe has declassified the Appendix to the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA). The appendix known as "Annex A" was the material the FBI and CIA did not include in the body of the ICA; however, it was used to brief congress. There was always suspicion that "Annex A" was the ridiculous claims by FBI source Christopher Steele; those suspicions are confirmed today [6/11/2020]. The ICA was written in late December '16 & early January 2017, and the purpose was to politicize intelligence by making outlandish claims of the Trump-Russia conspiracy the official position of the U.S intelligence apparatus (CIA, FBI, DOJ and NSA). Unable to Run Its Own Agencies, Washington Dictates to America's Police. The FISA court recently found federal intelligence agencies guilty of an "institutional lack of candor" in dealing with the tribunal. That conclusion has only been bolstered by Justice Department reports outlining stunning abuses of power by the FBI, serial lying and leaking by top officials, fabrication of evidence, and investigations launched on a dearth of predication and furthered by entrapment tactics and perjury traps. We never did get to the bottom of the Justice Department's "Fast and Furious" scandal, in which the ATF allowed illegal firearms transfers into Mexico — evidently hoping to fuel a political narrative against the Second Amendment but succeeding only in fueling violent Mexican gang crime that claimed the life of a border-patrol agent. Sen. Graham refuses to let FISA abuse get pinned on low-level FBI staff: 'I believe it goes to the very top'. Sen. Lindsey Graham says that he plans on calling former FBI Director James Comey and former deputy director Andrew McCabe to testify before his Senate Judiciary Committee, because he doubts they were unaware the dossier compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele had been debunked before it was used to get a FISA warrant to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. After former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein denied having knowledge of any altered documents or that the Steele dossier had been disavowed beforehand, McCabe responded by saying that Rosenstein's claim that he was misled by him or anyone else at the FBI "are completely false." Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" that he wants to press McCabe on his knowledge regarding the FBI's interview with Steele's sub-source, who denied the information in the dossier. FBI Pledge Allegiance to Black Lives Matter, Antifa, Nation of Islam and New Black Panthers Protesters. In a display of public unity with 'The Movement' writ large, FBI officials took a knee to declare their woke allegiance with the protesting mobs. With that visible display we now have a better understanding of the motives behind a history of FBI failures. Setting aside the optic that some members of the FBI looking more like 'meal-team-6', there was always a suspicion the FBI were more concerned about political correctness than actually doing the work of a federal investigative agency. Historically the FBI has failed miserably to stop domestic terror threats; and when the investigative failures are researched there's usually a prior connection between the attackers and the FBI. Time for the FBI to Disclose, Discharge, and Disinfect. When Christopher Wray was named director of the FBI in August 2017, he had two crucial tasks: clean the Augean Stables, which had been fouled by James Comey, and restore public confidence in the bureau. Comey presided over a carnival of misconduct. Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe, supervised all of it and handpicked most of the other agents involved. Wray's job was to muck out this mess, disclose the wrongdoing, fire the bad guys, and win back public support. To put it bluntly: he has failed at the job. He has failed the country, the president, and his fellow agents.
Dana Boente Removed! — FBI Chief Legal Counsel Forced to Resign. Finally, the DOJ has moved to remove one of the biggest background corrupt officials within the FBI. According to multiple media sources FBI chief legal counsel Dana Boente was forced to resign on Friday [5/29/2020]. Finally, sunlight has removed a very corrupt player. In prior positions as U.S. Attorney for Virginia; and while leading the DOJ National Security Division; and then later shifting to the FBI as chief legal counsel under Chris Wray; Dana Boente was at the epicenter of corrupt intent and malign activity toward the Trump administration. How The FBI Used 'News Hooks' To Advance The Trump-Russia Probe. A common theme that has emerged from the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation is bureau officials' use of media reports and leaks to advance aspects of the bureau's probe of the Trump campaign's possible ties to Russia. In at least five instances, FBI officials capitalized on the so-called news hooks — also called news pegs, in journalistic jargon — as justification to open up new areas of the investigation. James Comey, Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok all took advantage of media reports to push the investigation forward. And in one case, Comey orchestrated a leak of his own to spur the appointment of a special counsel. Prominent media outlets played a key role in advancing the now-debunked theory that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government. Much of that media manipulation centered around the infamous Steele dossier, which the Clinton campaign and DNC funded. AG Barr [is] Not So Confident in FBI Director Chris Wray Anymore. Since February 2019 Bill Barr has been a staunch and very public defender of Chris Wray. However, with new revelations about recent FBI efforts to block the release of information as it relates to Michael Flynn, it now appears the AG has less confidence. This shift is important because as the public have a renewed focused on the question of who illegally leaked Flynn's communication with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, there has always been a rather curious contrast issue with the known classified intelligence leaking of James Wolfe. If finding Flynn's leaker is important then why didn't the DOJ/FBI take action when they found a classified intelligence leaker in 2018? Report: Grenell Just Outsmarted the FBI and Took them Out of the 2020 "Election Game" With this Brilliant Move. There's no doubt about it... Grenell is one, two, three steps ahead of the Deep State and he's not taking any chances when it comes to the 2020 election. The Trump admin has learned a very valuable lesson about the dirty games the FBI played in 2016 and they're not about to let what happened with the bogus "Russia Collusion" scandal happen again as we head into 2020. Grenell made a brilliant move to take away the FBI's power in 2020 by announcing that any "election security" matters will be handled by the intel agencies that he oversees. Fixing the FBI. To fix the FBI, we need to understand what went wrong with it. It is now beyond debate, and should be a bipartisan concern of the first order, that something was very wrong with the FBI's most senior leadership in 2016-17. It is clear that Donald Trump's election was the catalyst for that leadership to take one of the most important organs of our government completely off the rails. The conduct of former FBI Director Comey personally, and the FBI senior leadership in his tenure, has emerged as a history of repeated conduct that now demands examination. It starts, but unfortunately does not end, with failed leadership at the bureau that in turn facilitated the bureau's unmistakably taking up a politically driven agenda. It looks like President Obama ordered up phony RussiaGate scandal. RussiaGate is now a complete dead letter — but ObamaGate is taking its place. Just how far did the then-president go to cripple his successor? It's now clear the Obama-Comey FBI and Justice Department never had anything more substantial than the laughable fiction of the Steele dossier to justify the "counterintelligence" investigation of the Trump campaign. Yet incessant leaks from that supposedly confidential probe wound up consuming the Trump administration's first months in office — followed by the Bob Mueller-led special-counsel investigation that proved nearly the "total witch hunt" that President Trump dubbed it. Information released as the Justice Department dropped its charges against Gen. Mike Flynn shows that President Barack Obama, in his final days in office, played a key role in fanning the flames of phony scandal. A Time to Hate. [Scroll down] Lt. Gen. Flynn never deserved what was done to him. He was targeted for destruction by criminals and crooks in the FBI. They set out to destroy him. The FBI is not allowed to bother law-abiding people like you and me, to set us up, and to induce us to commit a crime. They are permitted to pursue criminal investigations only when they have a predicate before them. In the case of Flynn, they had in their possession a complete recording and transcript of his phone call with Sergey Kislyak. Yet they interviewed him and asked him to tell them what was said during the call. The Bureau of Investigation was not investigating; they already knew the answer. Rather, they were setting him up to speak a falsehood, to commit the crime of lying to the FBI, an act whose criminal dimensions he did not appreciate as a layman. They dissuaded him from having an attorney at the interview so he would slip into the trap. A competent attorney would have protected him. Why Did Obama Tell The FBI To Hide Its Activities From The Trump Administration? In 1980, a teenage Amy Carter left a burnt cake in the oven of the White House's family quarters in a reflex of childish revenge for her father's landslide loss to Ronald Reagan. In 2017, Barack Obama and Joe Biden avenged Donald Trump's surprise victory over Hillary Clinton by leaving what they claim was a Russian agent in the West Wing. That conclusion inevitably follows if one accepts as credible the FBI's supposed predicates for launching the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the Trump campaign and the four related probes into George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn. Two Important Transcripts Shed Light on the FBI and Two of Their Informants. This piece is based on two of the transcripts that Adam Schiff was forced to release last Thursday and they are revelatory. The first concerns Felix Sater. The second is from the FBI Agent who handled Christopher Steele. The agent's name is kept confidential. If you are the FBI and you are running a counter intelligence investigation into Trump's ties with the Russians you would want Felix Sater, who helped the FBI on several cases involving Russian spies and Russian organized crime. He was a business partner of Donald Trump's since at least 2001. And what does Sater reveal about The Donald's ties to the Russian mob and Russian spies? He exonerates Trump. Then we have the unnamed FBI handler of Confidential Human Source Christopher Steele. He admits to knowing Sater and some of the things he did for the FBI. Any evidence of Trump cavorting with the Russians? NOPE. After you read the transcript you will appreciate why this FBI agent is not named. He did his job honestly and professionally. In fact, he's the one who terminated Steele as a source. Transcripts Contradict Comey's Claim That DNC Denied FBI Access to Servers. An attorney who represented the Democratic National Committee in connection to the hacking of its servers and the private cybersecurity expert who led the response to the breach both contradicted the testimony to Congress given by then-FBI Director James Comey, who claimed that the FBI sought and was denied access to DNC's physical servers. Michael Sussman, an attorney with Perkins Coie, told lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee in December 2017 that the FBI declined to access the DNC premises when offered to do so during a meeting which included cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike in mid-June of 2016, according to a newly declassified transcript. During the meeting, the chief executive officer of the DNC, Amy Dacey, relayed to the FBI that the bureau "could have access to anything they needed," according to Sussman. Robert Mueller memo shows why each key figure was targeted in probe. The Justice Department has released a largely unredacted copy of former acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's 2017 memo laying out the scope of former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, offering a previously unseen glimpse into how the Russia probe was framed. "The Scope of Investigation and Definition of Authority" was released Wednesday at the request of Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the current and former Judiciary Committee chairmen. The memo, dated as being sent on Aug. 2, 2017, and written to Mueller when Rosenstein was serving as deputy attorney general, specified five people whom he was permitted to investigate: Carter Page, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, George Papadopolous and one other whose name was redacted. Are Russia Collusion Hoax Holdouts Still Operating Within the FBI? What is it like inside the seventh floor of the FBI's Hoover fortress while revelations of constitutional abuses lash the walls like a never-ending hurricane season of the FBI's own making? Newly released documents have refocused attention on the FBI's abuses in the Flynn prosecution. The FBI's dirty tricks in the Flynn prosecution are almost too numerous to inventory. Does FBI Director Christopher Wray fret over the increasing perception that the FBI has become a rogue police force unbound by constitutional checks and balances? Is he feverishly working behind the scenes to root out perpetrators of spying abuses that targeted opponents based upon politics and other non-law enforcement purposes? A new interview with former journalist Carl Bernstein signals that there remains a Russia collusion hoax rearguard within the FBI in spite of the resignations, firings, and departures of Crossfire Hurricane figures, including Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bill Preistrap, James Baker, James Comey, and Kevin Kleinsmith. Jim Jordan: Wray's FBI failed to turn up missing FISA files. The top Republican on the House Oversight Committee is turning up the heat on FBI Director Christopher Wray to answer for persistent flaws in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act process. Rep. Jim Jordan sent a letter to DOJ Inspector General Horowitz on Friday, zeroing in on widespread issues found in the preliminary results of a March FISA audit. The Ohio Republican noted "the FBI was unable to locate the Woods files for four additional files that the OIG had requested — meaning the OIG could not review those applications." His letter, which was obtained by the Washington Examiner, reveals that as of April 21, the DOJ watchdog reported, "The FBI had not yet located or followed-up on these four missing Woods files." DOJ releases long-awaited Mueller scope memo, revealing the probe went beyond previously known mandate. The Justice Department on Wednesday released a mostly unredacted version of then-Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's August 2017 "scope memo" outlining the authority of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller — and the document reveals for the first time that Mueller's authority went significantly beyond what was known previously. Rosenstein, who later left the Justice Department for a law firm, oversaw Mueller's probe and played a central role in its still-unfolding drama. He was the subject of a two-page memo written by then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe that outlined how Rosenstein allegedly proposed wearing a wire in the White House "to collect additional evidence on the president's true intentions," and thought the scheme was plausible because "he was not searched when he entered the White House." Rosenstein has denied those allegations and slammed the FBI. Walls Closing In Around FBI Director Chris Wray as Documents Show His Enabling of Corrupt FBI Objectives. An interesting article from Fox News asks the question of whether Mueller's special counsel attorney Brandon Van Grack misled Judge Sullivan in the Flynn case by not being forthcoming about the background documents under the DOJ Brady obligation. Additionally, as a consequence of the Flynn evidence discoveries people are now asking why the FBI and DOJ did not produce these documents earlier. Representative Jim Jordan is specifically asking these questions of current FBI Director Chris Wray. In response to the Fox News article the FBI has released a statement which itself is very interesting. Apparently the FBI Director is trying to dig himself and his institution out of a hole; but it is only getting worse. Pressure mounts on Wray as FBI behavior in Russia case comes into clearer focus. Back in early 2018, the FBI under newly minted Director Chris Wray issued an extraordinarily rare public rebuke of a sitting House committee chairman. Then-House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes had just issued a memo concluding that the FBI under Wray's predecessor, James Comey, abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act process to improperly spy on President Trump's campaign. Wray fired back, even though the issues didn't happen on his watch, suggesting Nunes had given an inaccurate picture to the American public. America Doesn't Have A Justice System Anymore. [Scroll down] And this sorry state of affairs is all the FBI's fault. Every bit of it. At one time it was the pride of American law enforcement, a symbol of integrity, honesty and incredible courage under fire. But now when we think of the FBI in "action," we think of a couple dozen special agents decked out in full Delta Farce chic dragging an elderly gadfly out of bed in his PJs after making sure to tip-off CNN that this high-risk op was about to go down. Way to go, guys. Flynn documents are the 'smoking gun' on Comey's FBI. Had the Department of Justice (DOJ) released the newly disclosed documents related to Gen. Michael Flynn three years ago, instead of fired FBI director James Comey improperly leaking his "memos" on President Trump, there definitely would have been a special counsel — only it would have been investigating the FBI for gross abuse of power, not the Trump administration. The new documents are in effect the "smoking gun" proving that a cabal at the FBI acted above the law and with extreme political bias, targeting people for prosecution rather than investigating crimes. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz found 17 violations of policy and procedure in the initiation of the investigation of President Trump's campaign. Special counsel Robert Mueller's report found no evidence of any Trump-Russia collusion. And yet, much of the media coverage of all this has been so riddled with bias that, in a recent poll, 53 percent still believe Trump colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 presidential election. The FBI's 'Russiagate' search-and-destroy mission against Team Trump. With the latest revelation, the FBI's "Russiagate" investigation now stands exposed as worse than amateurish — and more like a search-and-destroy mission. Destroy the Trump administration, that is — not actual US enemies. Lawyers for ex-Gen. Michael Flynn released just-unsealed documents that suggest the FBI abused its power to take out President Trump's first national security adviser. The FBI has disgraced itself. [Scroll down] This week, we learned that an American hero, a loyal lifelong and proved courageous defender of our nation, was callously framed by a political conspiracy of the most senior FBI officials, seeking thereby to defame and destroy the newly elected president of the United States, Donald Trump. Over the years, the FBI regrettably has shown itself to be self-serving and inept and has suffered several disgraceful scandals, but always committed by lesser men. Today, the FBI, at the very top, has shown itself to actually be seditious, subverting the office of the president of the United States! K.T. McFarland gives hair-raising interview about being 'collateral damage' in FBI's goal 'to get Trump'. Former Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland exposed the corrupt FBI's investigation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn as really an attempt to take out President Donald Trump. McFarland slammed fired FBI Director James Comey and the agency's efforts to set up Flynn as revealed in newly released notes that show how he was ambushed in an interview in January of 2017. Comey "thought he was going to get away with" the blatant perjury trap set for the former Trump adviser, McFarland told Fox News host Martha MacCallum. Joe diGenova: Former FBI General Counsel James Baker Has Flipped and There's a Mole Inside the FBI. Washington attorney Joe diGenova, a former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, spoke to radio show host Howie Carr on Wednesday. Though the interview took place before Thursday night's stunning release of FBI documents pertaining to Gen. Michael Flynn, he reported some fascinating new information about the Durham investigation. DiGenova told Carr there is now a mole inside the FBI "who is leaking to the press about the current conduct of FBI Director Christopher Wray and his general counsel, Dana Boente. Even The Manipulated Senate Intel Report Can't Hide FBI Spies And Lies. On April 21, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a report on its review of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) drafted for President Barack Obama on Russia's interference in the 2016 election. Corporate media immediately touted the Republican-controlled committee's finding that "the ICA presents a coherent and well-constructed intelligence basis for the case of unprecedented Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election," including by hacking Democratic National Committee emails, as vindication of the intelligence communities' handling of all things Russia. But a close reading of the report — or at least those portions of the report that could be read — instead cements the reality that the FBI intentionally snowed the FISA court to spy on Donald Trump. The Russians did it — Revised Version. For three years, the left has been peddling the story that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election in collaboration with the Trump campaign, with the ridiculous Steele Dossier cited as the proof. Now, the Party Line has shifted. The Russians still did it, says the new line, possibly working with the Clinton campaign, only they fed disinformation to the gullible Christopher Steele, who than helped deceive the innocents at the CIA and the FBI. So if these agencies spent three years conducting a sham investigation that hamstrung the American Presidency and embittered political relations — well, it was still the Russian's fault. Declassified Footnotes From IG Report Reveal FBI Was Warned Multiple Times About Hillary's Phony Dossier — Used it Anyway to Spy on Trump. CBS News reporter Catherine Herridge obtained newly declassified footnotes in IG Horowitz's report showing multiple warnings to the FBI about Hillary's phony Russia dossier but they used it anyway to spy on Trump's campaign and to sabotage his presidency. As TGP previously reported, Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee Ron Johnson and Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee Chuck Grassley Tuesday sent a letter to Attorney General Bill Barr asking him to declassify four footnotes in Horowitz's report on FISA abuse. The Senators stated that the classified footnotes contradict what is publicly available in Horowitz's report related to Crossfire Hurricane, the CI investigation opened into Trump's campaign in July of 2016. The 13 revelations showing the FBI never really had a Russia collusion case to begin with. They've come slowly, drip by drip: the reluctant revelations of an FBI bureaucracy. But taken together, the body of evidence now amassed over two years of investigating the investigators explains why Attorney General William Barr last week declared there was never really a basis to probe Donald Trump's campaign for alleged collusion with Russia. "I think the president has every right to be frustrated, because I think what happened to him was one of the greatest travesties in American history," Barr told Fox News' Laura Ingraham. "Without any basis they started this investigation of his campaign, and even more concerning, actually is what happened after the campaign, a whole pattern of events while he was president. to sabotage the presidency, and I think that — or at least have the effect of sabotaging the presidency," the attorney general said. It looks like Putin conned the FBI into the 'Russiagate' probe. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Russia investigation launched and conducted by James Comey's Federal Bureau of Investigation deserves to rank as one of the agency's great blunders — at best. President Trump famously calls the probe a hoax, a label he uses liberally, but in this instance, it may literally be true. We've spent years obsessing about Russian meddling in our politics, and now it turns out that the original FBI investigation into the Trump campaign that morphed into the Mueller probe may have been instigated, in part, by Russian disinformation. FBI Knew Before Mueller Probe That Hillary's Steele Dossier Was Russian Disinformation. In a Friday night, holiday weekend document dump, we're now learning that before the Mueller investigation began, the FBI knew that at least part of the ridiculous so-called Steele dossier was based upon planted Russian disinformation. Worse, according to Senator Ron Johnson in a Wall Street Journal op-ed released Friday night [4/10/2020], the FBI continually lied about the provenance of the fake dossier information and only showed the FISA court and inspector general damning information about President Trump's election team. Exculpatory information was left out. Exculpatory Papadopoulos Transcript — FBI Surveillance Wire — Declassified and Released. Richard "Ric" Grenell was moved into the position as Acting Director of National Intelligence. Together with a new staff within the ODNI Grenell is now in position to assist in any declassification effort. Thus we also see the apoplexy by HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff, as Grenell is positioned to bring a lot of sunlight on the overall FISA-gate and Spygate operations. The corrupt intelligence community operators are not happy with Grenell holding such power. Keep this in mind. Interesting Ramifications: FISA Court Requires DOJ/FBI To Provide Names of Targets Within Corrupt Surveillance Applications. Things are getting interesting, potential ramifications are growing, as the FISA Court responds to the latest information from the DOJ Office of Inspector General (OIG). After a review of 29 FISA applications, from eight FBI field offices, the OIG informed the FBI and DOJ that none of the surveillance applications were compliant with the Woods procedures. Meaning zero applications had FBI evidence to support the validity of the claims within the FISA warrants. That's a very big problem if those FISA warrants were used to gather evidence used to prosecute the 29 targets of the applications. Some questions about that IG report blasting the FBI for FISA abuses. It's a tough situation, because we know that the FBI leadership illegally spied on Donald Trump's campaign adviser Carter Page, apparently out of political motives conjunctive with the mass unmaskings of U.S. citizens seen elsewhere in the Obama administration. But is every last FBI agent out there in the field offices hopelessly crooked? Is every last G-man we look at on TV now to be viewed with suspicions of dishonesty? Are we supposed to now think they all went from being straight arrows in the Marine Corps and the police agencies they were recruited from and collectively went to the dark side? I have my doubts — it takes a lot to create a culture of mass criminality, and typically, we'd be seeing more than just FISA abuse if that's what has been going on. Think thievery, corruption, torture, thuggery, nepotism, corruption, blatant rule-breaking, all over, as you might with a mafia. So far, we don't see that. The FBI Can't Be Trusted With the Surveillance of Americans. For years, we civil libertarians were told that our concerns about the secret court that oversees the FBI's applications to monitor U.S. citizens were overblown. So what if the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved more than 99% of all applications. The bureau and Justice Department must follow an onerous process, we were assured, that protects innocent citizens from being snooped on by their government. Those assurances, as it turns out, were not very reliable. On Tuesday [3/31/2020], the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued a new report that found systematic errors of fact in the FBI's applications for warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The memo does not speak to the materiality or significance of those errors — but they are startling nonetheless. Out of 42 applications, the report says, 39 included major defects. All told, the inspector general uncovered 390 deficiencies, including "unverified, inaccurate, or inadequately supported facts, as well as typographical errors." DOJ's FISA report contradicts claims by Dems, media figures that surveillance rules were strictly observed. New findings by the Justice Department inspector general that the FBI has repeatedly violated surveillance rules stood in stark contrast to the years of assurances from top Democrats and media commentators that bureau scrupulously handled Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants — and prompted Republican lawmakers to caution that the FBI seemingly believes it has "carte blanche to routinely erode the liberties of Americans without proper justification." The DOJ watchdog identified critical errors in every FBI wiretap application that it audited as part of the fallout from the bureau's heavily flawed investigation into former Trump advisor Carter Page, who was surveilled in part because of a largely discredited dossier funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). An FBI lawyer in that case even falsified a CIA email submitted to the FISA court in order to make Page's communications with Russians appear nefarious, the DOJ inspector general found; and the DOJ has concluded that the Page warrant was legally improper. FBI's coronavirus 'fitness app' slammed as a way to extract personal info. The FBI is helping gym rats looking to stay in shape during the coronavirus lockdown by promoting a fitness app — but it requires users to provide their GPS coordinates. The law enforcement agency urged people in a Monday tweet to "download the FBI's Physical Fitness Test app to learn proper form for exercises you can do at home like pushups and situps." The catch is that the FBI FitTest created in 2018 uses the "phone's GPS and accelerometer," which the FBI claims provides the user a "more realistic PFT experience." The digital workout tool has been slammed on social media as a sneaky way for the government to extract personal info amid the coronavirus pandemic. DOJ Dismisses Mueller's Charges against Russian Businesses. More than an investigation, the Mueller probe was the wellspring of a political narrative. That becomes clearer as time goes by and more information ekes out ... such as new confirmation that, months before Mueller was appointed in May 2017, it was already well understood in Justice Department circles that there was no case of criminal "collusion" between the Trump campaign and Russia. What if Hillary had won in 2016? If Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 election, we would not know about the enormously complex attempted coup she undertook, with a vast cast of characters, to defeat Donald Trump as a candidate and then unseat him once he was elected president. Only because she lost, do we now know a great deal about all that. We know Hillary commissioned and paid for the vaunted "dossier," that she hired Fusion GPS to deliver opposition research that would take candidate Trump out of the running. We know that bad actors in the FBI (James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Pete Strzok, et. al.), at the DOJ (Sally Yates, Rod Rosenstein, Bruce Ohr, et. al.), at the CIA (John Brennan) and James Clapper at the DNI all coordinated with each other to destroy Trump by wholly fraudulent means. Thanks to the wisdom of the voters, we now know all about their crimes against this country. Numerous books have been published by intrepid actual journalists that have laid out what happened in tremendous detail. Hopefully when AG Bill Barr and prosecutor John Durham release their report, we will be privy to all the details of the whole sordid story of the most venal political scandal in American history. Details of FBI's targeting of Trump emerge in Horowitz report. Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz's history of how the FBI targeted Donald Trump associates has become a constant presence on social media as journalists and Russia aficionados make more discoveries and connect the dots. Every page of the Horowitz report contains new disclosures. The report's banner headline was that FBI agents supplied inaccurate information or withheld exculpatory evidence 17 times when they asked judges to approve four wiretap warrants on campaign volunteer Carter Page. Morsels of information placed in footnotes or buried in a few sentences also tell a fuller story about the Trump-Russia investigation. Inside the FBI's 218 days that changed Trump's political world. Donald Trump campaign alumni wonder today what happened inside the FBI over 218 days from mid-August 2016 to March 20, 2017, that changed their lives forever. August was the month a special FBI unit code-named Crossfire Hurricane picked four Trump associates for Russia-related counterintelligence cases. Former FBI Director James B. Comey testified later that it was not the campaign but "four Americans" under the microscope. On March 20, 2017, Mr. Comey told the world that the entire Trump team faced investigation for "any links" to Russian government. What changed during those 218 days? First, there was no evidence at the time that the four had conspired with the Kremlin to hack Democratic Party computers or join in social media warfare against the Hillary Clinton campaign. There would never be any evidence. FBI's Russia collusion case fell apart in first month of Trump presidency, memos show. The piecemeal release of FBI files in the Russia collusion investigation has masked an essential fact: James Comey's G-men had substantially debunked the theory that Donald Trump's campaign conspired with Moscow by the time the 45th president was settling into the Oval Office, according to declassified memos, court filings and interviews. And that means a nascent presidency and an entire nation were put through two more years of lacerating debate over an issue that was mostly resolved in January 2017 inside the bureau's own evidence files. The proof is now sitting in plain view. The Democratic Party Is Wounded And Dangerous. The Democrats and the Deep State have spent the last four years constructing the greatest wag-the-dog spectacle America's ever seen in an attempt to cover up the malfeasance and criminality of the last administration, while preventing the current one from achieving too many victories. Considering that Brennan and Comey are still free and Obama and Hillary are still smiling, they've been remarkably successful. But the Mueller obfuscation and Schiff circus are behind us, the dance music of delay is dying down, and the Democrats' and Deep State's ability to keep pushing back their day of reckoning is coming to an end. If they don't win in 2020, they cannot keep justice at bay, regardless of how stacked in their favor it has always been in the past. FBI missed chances to stop domestic terror attacks because of lack of follow-up: DOJ watchdog. The FBI missed opportunities to stop domestic terrorists from killing Americans because field offices failed to further investigate individuals who had been labeled homegrown violent extremists, the Justice Department watchdog said in a scathing report released Wednesday [3/4/2020]. At least six terrorists who later carried out attacks killing a total of 70 people were on the FBI's radar prior to the attacks. However, the agents quickly closed the cases, concluding the suspects were not threats to national security, according to the Justice Department inspector general. Among the more high-profile individuals the FBI failed to recognize as a potential source of terrorism were Omar Mateen, who killed 49 individuals at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016, Nidal Hasan, who massacred 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, and Esteban Santiago, who killed five people in a 2017 terror attack at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. The FISA States of America. The Justice Department brazenly disregards the Constitution when it comes to spying. Does FISA help prevent terrorism? As I noted here, the government obtained more than 1,000 warrants in a one-year timeframe to spy on Americans. That's a lot of spying on a lot of Americans. The Justice Department's lying to obtain these warrants has become so brazen that the court now questions whether it can trust any of the affidavits the FBI submits to justify its domestic surveillance. The fact that none of these lies are ever criminally punished further reinforces a cycle of dishonesty within the process. Government Tries to Cancel Trial in Key Mueller Case Because the Defendant Isn't Playing Fair. If there is a unifying feature in the entire Mueller investigation beyond it being an unsuccessful coup attempt against President Trump is that it was a Seinfeld-esque "investigation about nothing." By the time Robert Mueller had pulled on his jackboots he already knew with near mathematical certainty that the key piece of evidence he was working from, the Steel dossier, had been the subject to nearly nine months of unsuccessful effort by the FBI and intelligence community to verify it. The report by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz documents the extreme and dishonest lengths gone to by the FBI to keep the Steele dossier in play. When the Special Counsel did file indictments (if you were ever an the laughably dishonest LawFareBlog or anywhere on the left you knew it because you'd see BOOM! or "It's Mueller time" in their tweets") they had zero relationship to the alleged subject of the investigation and involved process crimes, not substantive acts. But the most significant indictment by Mueller was that of Concord Management, a company owned by Putin crony Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin, and thirteen individual Russians, who may or may not exist, affiliated with the so-called Internet Research Agency. I say may or may not exist because one of the commercial entities owned by Prigozhin did not even exist when the alleged crimes took place and people involved in covert activities often use fake identities [...] New Book: The FBI Considered Joseph Mifsud an Asset. The official story of Operation Crossfire Hurricane provides that the investigation began with an accidental meeting between Papadopoulos and Alexander Downer, an Australian diplomat. The story holds that in May 2016, Papadopoulos and Downer had a chance meeting in a London bar during which a "heavy drinking" Papadopoulos revealed the Trump campaign "knew" the Russians possessed thousands of hacked Clinton emails that it intended to release to influence the 2016 election. When Wikileaks did indeed release hacked DNC emails in July 2016, Downer made a beeline to the FBI to report the lead on possible coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian email dump. Papadopoulos tells a different story. Democrats Block FISA Reform. Are House Democrats willing to jeopardize national security to keep alive their Trump-Russia collusion narrative? On Wednesday they abruptly canceled a markup on a bill to reauthorize three critical surveillance tools that are due to expire March 15. To listen to the liberal media, the bill has stalled over concerns about "civil liberties." In truth it's the latest casualty of Democrats' refusal to acknowledge that the Federal Bureau of Investigation abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court [...] Why is The New York Times Outing Lower Level FBI Spygate Operatives? A previously incurious New York Times is now exposing members of the FBI crew who participated in fraud upon the FISA Court. Are the corrupt former top-tier FBI officials starting to position lower-level FBI participants as scapegoats? Inside an insufferable article, engineered to defend the need for the DOJ and FBI to continue using FISA intelligence gathering information against U.S. persons, the New York times outlines Stephen M Somma as Case Agent 1, the handler for FBI confidential human source Stefan Halper. GOP Rep. Nunes believes FBI probe into Trump campaign began in late 2015, not 2016. The FBI began looking into the Trump presidential campaign before the agency's publicly stated July 31, 2016, start date, says Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. "I believe it started in 2015, but there's no question that it started in early 2016," Nunes said on the latest episode of the "John Solomon Reports" podcast. The California lawmaker said he's "highly confident" that the federal probe into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 White House race began in late 2015. FBI Agent Faulted In FISA Report For 'Significant' Errors Has Finally Been Identified. An FBI agent faulted for some of the most significant problems laid out in the Justice Department's inspector general report on FISA abuse against a Trump campaign associate has been identified. The New York Times, citing people familiar with the FBI's Russia probe, identified Stephen A. Somma, a counterintelligence investigator who works out of the bureau's New York field office, as "Case Agent 1" from the inspector general's (IG) report. The case for repealing FISA and reforming the FBI and CIA. The FBI, in its bungling partisanship, very likely swung the 2016 presidential election away from its preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton. The sprawling "community" of intelligence agencies (led by the FBI and CIA) covertly used dubious foreign sources to justify monitoring an American political campaign and, later, a U.S. presidential administration. To do so, it invoked daunting foreign-counterintelligence surveillance powers, based on a fever dream that its bête noire, Donald Trump, was an agent of the Kremlin. And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court recently chastised the FBI for feeding it false and unverified information — the secret court apparently calculating that this extraordinary public expression of wrath will divert attention from its own shoddy performance in approving highly intrusive spy warrants based on sensational, blatantly uncorroborated rumor and innuendo. DOJ Is Infected With Organized Crime, Trump Has Every Right To Push For Change, In Fact It's His Sworn Duty. It is painfully obvious the Department of Justice is infected with organized crime, awash with Obama infiltrators, only intent on maintaining power, not dispensing justice to those they don't agree with or those they see as political enemies. The Roger Stone affair is all the evidence you need of that. Their shame,, and primal fear, is also obvious in their discomfort with Donald Trump tweeting, in other words, getting his message direct to the American people, away from the corrupt media filters. Trump needs to keep doing just that. It is his right, no it is his sworn duty, to uphold the Constitution and its guarantees to the American people, something the Democratic Party and its media enablers have long since cast aside as a priority. We need a full investigation, and a full accounting of what happened at DOJ and what is still going on. If William Barr can't put out the fire, or can't stand the heat, we need to find another fireman. Who's complaining about investigations now? Attorney General William Barr is looking into the murky origins of the politically-charged Justice Department investigations that have roiled American public life for the last three years. Just how did the FBI's "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation into the 2016 Trump presidential campaign get started? What led the FBI to look into whether President Trump was working on behalf of Russia? Why did the Justice Department use an ancient, never-enforced law as a pretext to interrogate then-national security adviser Michael Flynn, leading to one of the most troubling court cases in recent years? And more. Each investigation involved highly publicized leaks that led to many headlines and endless discussion on cable TV. Anti-Trump voices stood firmly in support of more and more detailed inquiries of the president and his allies. Andrew Weissmann: AG Barr Is Starting New Investigation into Fired FBI Officials Jim Comey, Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok. Little crooked man Andrew Weissmann told Chuck Todd today [2/16/2020] the new investigation initiated this week by Attorney General Bill Barr involving US Attorney in St. Louis Jeff Jensen is a ruse to investigate Jim Comey, Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok. On Friday [2/14/2020] Attorney General Bill Barr assigned an outside prosecutor to review the abusive case against General Mike Flynn. Barr also assigned a handful of prosecutors to review other cases in the US Attorney's office in DC. Top Mueller Prosecutor Says DoJ Starting New Investigation Into Comey, McCabe, and Strzok. An interesting twist is arising from the decision of Attorney General Barr to name an outside counsel, Jeffrey Jensen, to investigate the Michael Flynn case. The former top prosecutor on special counsel Robert Mueller's team says the ploy by Barr is a "ruse" so that the Department of Justice can open a new investigation into former FBI officials James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Peter Strzok. Andrew Weissmann, a former Justice Department official who was known as Mueller's "pit bull" during the Russia investigation, says that "all they did was swapped out a loser case for starting an investigation that is going to be of Comey, McCabe, Pete Strzok," Weissmann told MSNBC host Chuck Todd. "Weissman is referring to the "loser" case of prosecuting former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe for lying about media leaks during the Russia investigation. Top Mueller prosecutor: DOJ starting new investigation into James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Peter Strzok. One of Robert Mueller's former top prosecutors said the outside prosecutor picked to review the case against retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn is a ruse to investigate President Trump's perceived enemies. Andrew Weissmann, a former Justice Department official who was known as Mueller's "pit bull" during the Russia investigation, said the Justice Department swapped out the "loser case" of Andrew McCabe, who escaped criminal charges on Friday for allegedly lying to investigators about authorizing media disclosures, for a fresh one targeting top former FBI officials, including McCabe, led by Jeffrey Jensen, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. "All they did was swapped out a loser case for starting an investigation that is going to be of Comey, McCabe, Pete Strzok," Weissmann told MSNBC host Chuck Todd. Senator Graham claims he will finally use his Judiciary Cmte to investigate the lying liars at the FBI & DOJ. [Video clip] Lindsey Graham asks DOJ for interviews with 17 officials in FISA abuse investigation. Sen. Lindsey Graham requested "transcribed interviews" with 17 Department of Justice and FBI employees as part of the Senate's investigation into abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The South Carolina Republican sent a letter requesting the interviews to Attorney General William Barr on Friday [2/14/2020]. Graham is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and is heading the congressional investigation into the FBI's investigations into the Trump campaign in 2016. The FBI Corruption is Far Worse Than We Currently Imagine. Last month the DOJ admitted to the FISA court that two of the four FISA warrants used against Carter Page were fraudulently obtained. [...] However, what the DOJ did not admit publicly was how the current FBI Chief Legal Counsel, Dana Boente, participated in obtaining the April 2017 warrant. Additionally, a review of the internal FBI & DOJ scheme to obtain the fraudulent April warrant shows FBI Director James Comey couldn't get the renewal unless he convinced Main Justice to trick the President into issuing an executive order to grant surveillance on himself. In hindsight this story explains the ongoing issues within the FBI. House Republicans Rebuke FBI Director Wray for Tepid Response to IG Report. House Republicans unleashed on FBI Director Christopher Wray about the bureau's lackluster response to the [serious] problems uncovered in the DOJ Inspector General's report on FISA abuses, according to the Washington Times. At a House Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, Wray claims he went "above and beyond" to provide accountability and made more than 40 changes to the bureau's FISA policies and practices. "The failures highlighted in that report are unacceptable — period," he said. "They don't reflect who the FBI is as an institution and they cannot be repeated." Key witness told Team Mueller that Russia collusion evidence found in Ukraine was fabricated. One of Robert Mueller's pivotal trial witnesses told the special prosecutor's team in spring 2018 that a key piece of Russia collusion evidence found in Ukraine known as the "black ledger" was fabricated, according to interviews and testimony. The ledger document, which suddenly appeared in Kiev during the 2016 U.S. election, showed alleged cash payments from Russian-backed politicians in Ukraine to ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. "The ledger was completely made up," cooperating witness and Manafort business partner Rick Gates told prosecutors and FBI agents, according to a written summary of an April 2018 special counsel's interview. How Democrats' Get-Trump Crusade Has Irreparably Damaged The Nation. The FBI's malfeasance in the launch and handling of Crossfire Hurricane provides the starkest example of damage wrought without regard to the ramifications. Americans no longer trust the world's premier law enforcement agency because of men like James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Peter Strzok, and women like Lisa Page. They no longer believe in equal justice under the law, or the integrity of sworn affidavits and judicially authorized surveillance. Current FBI Director Christopher Wray has promised a clean-up, but that likely won't be enough either for the public or for the FISA court. And it is the damage in the eyes of the FISA court that risks much more than the faith Americans place in law enforcement agencies — it puts at risk the lives of Americans. The FISA courts exist not for political warfare, but to combat terrorism. Trey Gowdy on the FBI: The Bureau Was Out to Get the President. On Fox News Thursday, erstwhile South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy fired upon former Federal Bureau of Investigations Director James Comey and 2016-2018 FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Trey told host Martha MacCallum the deeds of top FBI officials was sufficient evidence to suspect they were "out to get" Donald Trump. [...] The host noted Trump's reference to the salvation of Comey's firing, founded upon the idea that it was he who allowed such a culture in the Bureau to grow. Gowdy agreed, with an expansion: "Yeah, I would correct the President's narrative only to this extent: He replaced Comey with McCabe. That is hardly moving up the draft board. It was only when Chris Wray came in that I think you had a dispassionate, objective, law-enforcement-centered person. McCabe was no better than Comey." Now Let's Get Down To Business.
[Scroll down] Each time President Trump came close to declassifying the material someone from the DOJ intercepted the
anticipated action and blocked the release. In the fall of 2018 it was DAG Rod Rosenstein. In the summer of 2019
it was AG Bill Barr. Amid the twists and turns many people have forgotten about the material congress asked President
Trump to declassify two-years-ago. Additionally there has been some material cited that just seemingly slipped away
without follow-up. Consider:
Corruption Coverup — Nadler Schedules FBI Oversight Hearing With Chris Wray on Same Day as Impeachment Vote. [C]ould House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler be any more transparent with his intentions here? Knowing all eyes will be on the Senate impeachment vote at 4:00 pm on the same day, Democrat Chairman Nadler schedules the House oversight hearing on FBI (FISA Misconduct) for 10:00 am Wednesday, February 5th, to bury it. FBI Director Christopher Wray has not been scheduled to face any questioning or public scrutiny by any legislative oversight body since the Inspector General report highlighted gross corruption and FBI misconduct in the December 9th, 2019, FISA report. Additionally, the DOJ/FBI response to the demands of the FISC were also extended to February 5th. The corrupt institutions, and the administrative state that surrounds them, are working overtime to avoid any exposure and national discussion about misconduct that should alarm everyone. Why? Because they targeted Donald Trump... So, bury it. As Impeachment Ends, It's Time to Correct These Nine Injustices. [#5] Reform the CIA and the FBI. We've learned in the last 3-4 years that both the CIA and the FBI participated in the Russia collusion hoax even after it was known to be a hoax. Where were the whistleblowers? One answer is that these two powerful agencies don't rotate their officials the way the military does. Keeping the same power-players working together for decades creates fertile ground for conspiracy. They learn each other's secrets and come to depend on a kind of "omerta" to their mutual benefit. A few fresh faces will keep these power players more accountable as they will never know whether the new guy will "play ball." The FBI Has Been Lying About Seth Rich. A persistent American lawyer has uncovered the undeniable fact that the FBI has been continuously lying, including giving false testimony in court, in response to Freedom of Information requests for its records on Seth Rich. The FBI has previously given affidavits that it has no records regarding Seth Rich. A Freedom of Information request to the FBI which did not mention Seth Rich, but asked for all email correspondence between FBI Head of Counterterrorism Peter Strzok, who headed the investigation into the DNC leaks and Wikileaks, and FBI attorney Lisa Page, has revealed two pages of emails which do not merely mention Seth Rich but have "Seth Rich" as their heading. The emails were provided in, to say the least, heavily redacted form. Preventing Another 'Crossfire Hurricane'. Sometime this year, the U.S. Attorney for Connecticut, John Durham, will probably have a grand jury issue indictments of some of the "Crossfire Hurricane" leaders. Among them will likely be former FBI agent Peter Strzok, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, and former FBI director James Comey. He may also indict some of the CIA's current and former leaders including Obama's CIA director John Brennan and current CIA Director Gina Haspel (Brennan's protégé) who ran the overseas elements of "Crossfire Hurricane." However many of the "Crossfire Hurricane" team are indicted, and whether or not they are convicted, their indictment will shake the FBI (and, we hope, the CIA) to their cores. The indictments will have the effect of dissuading further secret investigations of presidential campaigns but even that effect will not be permanent, nor will they prevent another "Crossfire Hurricane" from ever happening again. Codes of Conduct From the Swamp. [A]pparently our country's intelligence community was out to put the clamps on Mr. Trump even before he was elected. Slowly we are finding out that, for instance, FISA warrants included warrants that were illegal. We are finding out that these agencies were eavesdropping on Trump and his aides. Conservatives always defended the CIA and FBI against career civil libertarians. Now we are finding out that these agencies were used against President Trump and his people. What did the Trumpians do to antagonize the intelligence community? Do the heads of these agencies really think that Donald Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin? I have not seen the evidence. A two-year investigation conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller could not find the evidence either. So let us come up with the evidence that will convince Americans that, as John Brennan, formerly of the CIA, has said, Trump's behavior was "treasonous." Treasonous? The evidence? Grassley Letter Asks Whether Taxpayers Paid Russian Agent To Help Start The Collusion Hoax. On Wednesday [1/22/2020], Sen. Chuck Grassley's office released a letter he penned to James Baker, the director of the Office of Net Assessments for the Department of Defense. Grassley's letter ostensibly concerned fiscal oversight, but the details revealed by the finance committee chair raise new concerns about FBI confidential human source Stefan Halper. Grassley's letter began with a recap of his previous record requests, noting that in July 2019, the chair had requested "all records related to Professor [Stefan] Halper's contracts with DoD." Grassley then highlighted several revelations discovered during the finance committee chair's review of those documents, including various weaknesses in Halper's various proposals. Sharyl Attkisson Speaks Out. There are many books, TV shows, and movies about once-revered FBI agents portaying them as heroes. But after revelations concerning Donald Trump, Richard Jewell (accused of the Atlanta Olympic bombing), and well-respected journalist Sharyl Attkisson, people might be reconsidering. Maybe FBI should stand for Fear, Beware, and Intimidate, while DoJ, the parent company, should stand for Department to Obstruct Justice. Granted, many do their jobs well, but the leaders at the top are definitely suspect to having an agenda. The Comey coverup unravels. In a curious report on Thursday evening [1/16/2020], the New York Times carefully averts its eyes from everything that's interesting. Even Adam Schiff has acknowledged that James Comey's actions in 2016 may represent the most important and significant Russian influence on the election. Surely one of the most consequential pieces of intelligence ever received by U.S. agencies was, as we now learn, received in early 2016 from a Dutch counterpart. This is the dubious Russian intelligence that set off Mr. Comey's multiple interventions in the last presidential race, culminating in an improper act that may have inadvertently elected Donald Trump. Even at the time Mr. Comey's FBI colleagues considered the intelligence, which indicated questionable actions by the Justice Department to fix the Hillary email investigation, to be false, possibly a Russian plant. FBI Utilized Crack Addict Stefan Halper As Its Key Source to Spy Illegally on Trump Team in Its Attempted Coup of the President. Investigative reports show that Stefan Halper was the spy working for the FBI in the Trump campaign. This big man and indicted cocaine addict was who the FBI relied on in its attempted coup of the President of the United States. Former Senior Treasury Financial Crimes Official Pleads Guilty To Leaking Records of Cohen, Manafort, Gates, Butina and More. CTH noted last year when John Fry, an intelligence analyst with the IRS's law enforcement arm, was arrested that something more was happening in the background of his case and the DOJ case against Natalie Sours-Edwards. Today Ms. Sours-Edwards pleads guilty to downloading & distributing the financial records of people connected to the Trump orbit. You might remember back in May 2018 when sketchy porn lawyer Michael Avenetti was releasing U.S. Treasury notifications on Michael Cohen received from an unknown source within the Treasury Department. You might also remember when New Yorker's Ronan Farrow wrote a sympathetic article after talking to the leaking treasury official. As a result the Treasury Inspector General began an investigation. Christopher Wray Isn't the Right Man to Fix the FBI. The nation's most powerful law enforcement agency is in shambles. Following a series of internal investigations, in addition to extensive reporting on the misconduct of former top officials, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is suffering a crisis in confidence from the very people it has a sworn duty to protect: the American public. Considering its behavior over the past four years, one could be forgiven for thinking that the FBI exists only to serve the interests of the political aristocracy. From the Clinton email server cover-up to the unfounded counterintelligence probe into four Americans working for the Trump presidential campaign and the corruption of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the FBI has exploited its power to defend partisan allies and punish foes. Spy Court Picks FISA Abuse Denier To Tackle FISA Abuse. The nation's top spy court appointed an Obama-era Justice Department official who has denied and downplayed FBI surveillance abuse to assess the FBI's response to a scathing new report cataloguing problems with how the agency secured authority to spy on a Donald Trump campaign affiliate. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) presiding Judge James Boasberg appointed David Kris to review the FBI's proposed changes to its surveillance application process even though he spent the past few years running interference for the FBI as substantive criticism of the agency mounted. Revealed: Identity of top FBI official who leaked secret information to media. The name of a former top FBI official who leaked sensitive information over the course of hundreds of communications with at least six reporters can be revealed by the Washington Examiner. His identity is contained in a 21-page report obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. The report reveals that investigators for Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz determined that Bryan Paarmann, 53, the deputy assistant director of the FBI's international operations division from 2016 to 2017, "improperly disclosed court-sealed and law enforcement sensitive information to the media" in violation of FBI rules. The incident is one Horowitz included as part of what his June 2018 report called the FBI's "culture of unauthorized media contacts." A one-page summary of the investigation was released last May. Attorney General William Barr, 'Adult of the Year'. Few people in the country today have demonstrated deeper insight into Spygate, the investigation into those who have been investigating the elected president of the United States, than Kimberley Strassel. In her column I detected a genuine note of alarm. Is it possible that the investigation of the investigators could be brought to an end? Could the media render Attorney General Barr or prosecutor John Durham suspect? Will they uncover an incriminating telephone call? How long can the Democrat-controlled House mire these men in one of their investigations? Is it possible that the whole finely-tuned investigation overseen by the attorney general will come to a grinding halt because of Democratic subterfuge? Well, I do not think it is likely, but it is possible. As Ms. Strassel writes, the evidence against the FBI has steadily accumulated. Redeeming the FBI. Due to the actions of a few, the overall trust of the American public, previously enjoyed by both agencies is arguably at an all-time low. Tinfoil hat folks excepted, the general public has always extended the benefit of the doubt to FBI agents in the performance of their duties. This deference was hard-earned by investigators and prosecutors who made the thousands of prominent cases that forged the Bureau's reputation. The misuse of their positions has already cost the malefactors their jobs. Whingeing over treatment at the hands of those that hurt their feelings only brings further discredit to the organization that once employed them. [...] I understand that there will be a period of mistrust that follows the clear breaches committed by a small percentage of the organization. Please don't let their deeds permanently undermine your faith in the FBI. It's Statistically Impossible For The FBI's Spygate Errors To All Be Mistakes. [Scroll down] There's no way the cards can all fall one way, no way every "mistake" can redound in support of the government's "case" against Page. There's no statistical way every single oversight, clerical error, unchecked box, unread file, misplaced document, unread email, uncorroborated assumption, unverified assertion, omission of exculpatory evidence, and inclusion of false allegations can all fall against Page, and in favor of the FBI's goal of providing probable cause to convince the court to believe he was an agent of a foreign power. There's no way 17 glaring omissions, mistakes, mischaracterizations, and straight-up lies can make their way, undetected, unquestioned, and uncorrected, through the now-legendary labyrinth of supervisory coordination, from line agents to Woods Procedures to FBI supervisors to DOJ reviewers to FBI counsel, FBI deputy director, FBI director, DOJ general counsel, deputy attorney general, and attorney general certification. Does William Barr Have the Guts? The recent I.G. report on FISA abuse was just another in a very long line of disappointing indicators that equal justice may never be restored to our nation. [...] Is this guy Barr for real? Is he ready to face the hellfire that will be unleashed if he takes real steps to hold coup conspirators accountable? It's looking increasingly likely that he is for real, but what remains to be seen how far he is willing to go. [...] The first question to be answered is exactly how far Barr needs to take it. If you ask MAGA country, they're calling for heads up to and including Obama's. This is doubtful and certainly not prudent because the political and systemic repercussions would be devastating and permanently destabilizing for the USA. [...] Care must be taken to avoid the precedent of high-level political war. Otherwise, we'll morph into a banana republic in less than a generation. Ultimately, justice needs to be done, so a compromise must be made. Col Douglas Macgregor Has Suspicions About Pompeo, Esper and Milley. [W]e are not alone in our suspicions of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley. Tonight Col Douglas Macgregor outlines his own suspicions about the U.S. military attack in Iraq and Syria that parallel our initial gut reaction. Macgregor states his belief that President Trump is being "skillfully misinformed". [Video clip] An FBI Analyst Is Going to Prison for Illegal Email Hacking of a Political Enemy...to Protect Mueller. While U.S. Attorney John Durham continues his criminal investigation into FISA abuse and other misconduct at the FBI, CIA, DIA and other federal government intelligence agencies, one of Special Counsel Robert Mueller allies was just sentenced to prison. Mark Tolson, a former FBI analyst, illegally accessed the emails of right wing activist Jack Burkman in order to protect Mueller. He admitted to doing so in federal court last week. He will serve seven days behind bars and has been ordered to pay a $500 fine. "I did what I did to try to protect Director Mueller, who can protect himself," Tolson told U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema. After illegally sifting through emails, Tolson attempted to leak them to the press. Dan Bongino Explains Why the Unmaskings Left Little or No Paper Trail. Everytime I watch a Dan Bongino podcast, I learn something new about Spygate. I hear information that I find nowhere else and I spend hours everyday reading/watching the news. Recently, Bongino interviewed Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) whose investigative work, particularly in 2018, (along with that of John Solomon and Bongino) did so much to uncover the activities of the FBI in 2016. During the interview, Nunes said that, at a certain point during their investigation, he and his team began to track Bongino because they couldn't believe the information he managed to obtain. Nunes said his team would receive classified information and Bongino would be simultaneously telling his listeners the same thing. Anyway, recently the New York Times reported that U.S. Attorney John Durham has turned his attention to former CIA Director John Brennan. Durham has requested Brennan's communications records from the CIA and is said to be looking into various testimony he has given — possibly searching for discrepancies. FBI Director Wray Responds to the FISA Court's Statement and Shows It's Time for Him to Go. Earlier today [12/17/2019], the FISA court released an extremely rare public statement in which they addressed the findings of the recent IG report. In it, they laid out the gravity of the misconduct, with the court taking issue with the lies and omissions put upon them by the FBI. While there may be a bit of blame shifting here (the FISA court should have been more skeptical from the jump), there's no doubt the lion's share of the issue was they were given incomplete and sometimes false information to make judgements with. [...] Now, the FBI has responded via their own statement written by Directer Christopher Wray. GOP Sen. Hawley: The FBI Interfered in the 2016 Election. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) on Thursday appeared on "Fox & Friends" and reacted to the Department of Justice's inspector general report by Michael Horowitz. [...] What's worse: is it worse to have a foreign government trying to interfere in our election or is it worse to have our own government? Because that's what the FBI did," Hawley advised. Our Elites Don't See What's Coming. [Scroll down] This all leads us to a serious problem that we as a country are facing: we've been losing trust in our institutions for quite some time. All that the last few years have done is to reinforce that kind of thinking. Seriously. Ask yourself: Do you really trust the FBI? I don't. With the recent reports from Michael Flynn's attorney, Sidney Powell, apparently senior FBI agents tampered with 302s, falsifying information to get the results they wanted which had nothing to do with the truth. This was the FBI — supposedly the world's greatest law enforcement agency. I don't think so. Until those senior officials go to jail for their abuse of power my distrust of the FBI will continue. Do you really trust the Justice Department? Maybe. I'll see what Attorney General Barr and John Durham pursue and actually accomplish. I can assure you, however, if there are not prosecutions with jail time, scratch that institution off the list. The CIA? Forget about it. Congress? You mean the inept worthless institution that sits on its hands and has ceded massive control of the lawmaking function of government to the administrative state? I have to tell you: is there really a point to Congress in its current form? Mittens, the Deep State, and the Ongoing Coup Against POTUS. Recently, one of my email pals sent me an incredible opinion piece from Howell Woltz at The International Centre for Justice, in Warsaw, Poland. He is the author of "Justice Denied: The United States vs. the People," a very interesting book about the US justice system and federal prisons and the need for some serious reform. Occasionally, an opinion piece is so profound that it simply MUST be disseminated to a much wider audience than a simple blog post. This is one of such article. In this commentary, he opines on the DoJ/FBI cabal's ongoing coup against POTUS while explaining some key connections among John Brennan, Mitt Romney, Cofer Black, Burisma Holdings (Ukraine), Bararck Obama, Hillary Clinton, and all the rest. It fills in a lot of gaps and explains much about what is going on with respect to the Ukraine kerfuffle. While I can't vouch for the veracity of all the claims here, this just rings true to me and connects a lot of very interesting dots. As usual, I caution you to "trust but verify." The Only Way to Save the FBI Is to Expose Everything. The big news in what was a relatively big news day [2/14/2019] was made by fired Acting Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe in snippets from a forthcoming interview on 60 Minutes. McCabe — the man who somehow couldn't recall what the words "insurance policy" referred to in one of his texts — was promoting a new book he somehow managed to write despite his faulty memory. In the midst of this, he confirmed what many of us long suspected — that he and other major officials (Rod Rosenstein, etc.) of the FBI and the DOJ contemplated, even attempted to some degree, a coup d'état against the president of the United States. The Gangster State. [Scroll down] This becomes more obvious when looking at the whole criminal enterprise that is currently called the FBI. There's no question that the people at the top engaged in a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy to spy on the Trump campaign and engineer a criminal investigation of his administration, for the purpose of removing him from office. This is the one explanation that explains the mountain of evidence piled up in the public domain. This is so obvious that no one bothers to deny it. Instead, the game is to avoid discussing it in public. Lurking in the secret FBI files can be only three possibilities, with regards to this conspiracy. One, there is proof they cooked the whole thing to help get Hillary Clinton elected. The other is some out of left field explanation for the mountain of data, that points to an innocent motive. The final option is a massive hole in the system where the damning proof used to exists, but has now been destroyed as part of the cover-up. To date, the FBI and DOJ refuse to comply with Congressional subpoenas to answer this question. Federal prosecutors interviewed multiple FBI officials for Russia probe review. Federal prosecutors who are looking into the origins of the government's Russia probe have interviewed about two dozen people, suggesting that the inquiry is further along than previously known, The New York Times reported Saturday [10/19/2019]. The prosecutors have asked witnesses about whether former FBI officials that have been frequent targets of President Trump hold anti-Trump bias, former officials and others familiar with the review told the Times. U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is leading the investigation, has not interviewed all of the FBI officials who were instrumental in opening the Russia probe in 2016, sources told the newspaper. We've lost sight of the real scandal. What will Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz's latest investigation reveal? Will Congress hold hearings about it? Will former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe actually get indicted? After all, it's said that a motivated prosecutor can "indict a ham sandwich" if he really wants to. We're so wrapped up in the daily tick-tock, we could be losing sight of a big picture that's come into focus over the past two years. For the first time in our nation's history, an inspector general — one appointed by President Obama — has determined that at least two men who sat in the top spot at the FBI committed multiple violations that warrant possible prosecution. That in itself is a scandal with national implications deserving of headlines, congressional hearings and promises to overhaul a broken system. Of course, the complicating factor in the whole mess is that the government entities responsible for addressing any wrongdoing are the same ones inextricably tied to the alleged wrongdoing. Chris Wray's FBI continues to cover for Team Comey's Russia shenanigans. The FBI is going to court to fight the public release of a small number of documents the State Department sent to agents from Christopher Steele, the British intelligence operative and Hillary Clinton-paid political muckraker, during the 2016 election. Normally, such Freedom of Information Act cases don't merit public attention. This one does. To hear the FBI tell it, the release of former Deputy Assistant Secretary Kathleen Kavalec's documents is tantamount to giving up the keys to President Trump's nuclear briefcase, aiding the enemy or assisting terrorists. Meadows: 'There's a Cover-up Within Certain Realms at the FBI'. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), in an interview on "Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo," touched on a wide range of issues including the investigation by Justice Department (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz, the potential testimony before Congress of former special counsel Robert Mueller, the release of new documents this week, and whether people in the FBI and DOJ will be held accountable. About the investigation by Horowitz into alleged FISA abuse, Meadows said that he expects the report to be delayed. "Only Michael Horowitz knows the exact timeframe of when it's coming out. Obviously, the attorney general had indicated that he hoped to see it in June. I'm not as optimistic now. And one of the reasons for that is additional information has been given to the inspector general for them to investigate," Meadows said. Bruce Ohr and/or Nellie Ohr This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. Roger Stone This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. Michael Cohen Deep State IRS Employee John Fry Pleads Guilty to Leaking Michael Cohen's Bank Records to Avenatti. Deep State IRS analyst John Fry pleaded guilty Wednesday [8/14/2019] to leaking Michael Cohen's bank records to creepy porn lawyer Michael Avenatti and The New Yorker. Mr. Fry was charged in February of this year by the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California with unauthorized disclosure of a suspicious activity report, or SAR. Banks file SARs on any transactions that could be illegal. IRS analyst pleads guilty to leaking Michael Cohen's financial records. An Internal Revenue Service analyst pleaded guilty Wednesday [8/14/2019] to illegally disclosing sensitive financial records about President Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, in a leak case stemming from the Justice Department's investigations of those close to the president. John Fry, who had worked as an investigative analyst with the IRS in San Francisco, entered his plea in federal court there. Fry was charged in February with the unauthorized disclosure of suspicious activity reports, or SARs. Such reports are meant to flag potentially unlawful financial conduct to government investigators but do not necessarily indicate wrongdoing. Is A Major Real Scandal About To Break Soon? The whole "Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress" was essentially a sub-hoax perpetuated by Buzzfeed. Despite Cohen's sensational testimony before Congress in an effort to ingratiate himself to prosecutors, we found out that even this "bombshell" was nothing. Taken altogether, what we know is that the entire Russian collusion story was nothing but a huge hoax foisted upon the American public, but one we should all be worried about. What has become increasingly clear is that there was a story developed by a strange incestuous group involving the media, the Clinton campaign, deep state Obama bureaucrats and the DNC to derail the Trump administration. Michael Cohen offers Democrats new evidence against Trump in bid to delay prison. President Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen says he has new information to offer Democrats if authorities reduce or delay his upcoming three-year prison sentence. In a letter to lawmakers Thursday, Cohen's attorneys say he has discovered substantial files on a hard drive that could help investigations of the president. The hard drive is said to include over 14 million files, which consist of all emails, voice recordings, images and attachments from Cohen's computers and phones, his attorneys Lanny Davis, Michael Monico and Carly Chocron wrote. Records show FBI was probing Michael Cohen long before raid. Special Counsel Robert Mueller began investigating President Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, for fraud in his personal business dealings and for potentially acting as an unregistered foreign agent at least nine months before FBI agents in New York raided his home and office, according to documents released Tuesday [3/19/2019]. Have the Democrats finally gone too far? Did Democrats overreach when they invited convicted liar and turncoat scammer Michael Cohen to tell Congress President Trump is a bad guy? Are they on a ridiculous fishing expedition when they summon 81 people, including three of the president's children, to testify to a congressional panel whose chairman says he's certain Trump committed crimes, no matter what special counsel Robert Mueller says? Have they lost their minds with plans for a single-payer health system, the Green New Deal, unrestricted abortion, open borders and endless free stuff? Tripwire: Adam Schiff Staff Coached Michael Cohen Four Times, Over Ten Hours, Prior to Testimony. Nothing is organic; everything is planned; this is simply what the Democrats do every single time. They use the same playbook. Adding further evidence toward this insufferable scheme, reports are now surfacing that HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff dispatched his staff members to coach Michael Cohen on his testimony on four occasions (in New York), prior to his congressional appearance, totaling more than 10 hours. Again, everything is rehearsed and scripted. These latest developments explain why the Cohen testimony was delayed. Political democrat operatives, working with Cohen's handler Lanny Davis, worked through a training and coaching process for maximum effect. This coordinated process is also why Cohen was given a deferment to the beginning of his prison sentence. Cohen met with Schiff staff for over 10 hours before House Oversight Committee hearing, sources say. President Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen told House investigators this week that staff for Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., traveled to New York at least four times to meet with him for over 10 hours immediately before last month's high-profile public testimony, according to two sources familiar with the matter — as Republicans question whether the meetings amounted to coaching a witness. The sources said the sessions covered a slew of topics addressed during the public hearing before the oversight committee — including the National Enquirer's "Catch and Kill" policy, American Media CEO David Pecker and the alleged undervaluing of President Trump's assets. But, Republicans have raised concerns with the sessions, with Ohio Rep. Mike Turner sending a letter to Cohen's team on Wednesday demanding answers. Cohen inquired about pardon from Trump, his lawyer says, contradicting testimony to Congress. A lawyer representing former Trump attorney Michael Cohen said Wednesday that Cohen directed a lawyer last year to inquire about possibly receiving a pardon from President Trump. The disclosure by Lanny Davis, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, contradicted testimony by Cohen last week on Capitol Hill, in which Cohen told members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee: "I have never asked for, nor would I accept, a pardon from Mr. Trump." In a written statement, Davis said Cohen "directed his attorney" to ask about a possible pardon. The newspaper adds that it previously reported that Stephen Ryan, a past attorney for Cohen, discussed a pardon with President Trump's lawyers in the weeks after FBI agents raided Cohen's home, office and hotel room. Michael Cohen won't make a dime on [a] book full of his House testimony. A Michael Cohen instant book in his own words hit Tuesday — but the fixer-turned-President Trump-antagonist will reap no gain. Diversion Books said it crashed "Cohen's House Testimony: The Complete Transcripts and Case Documents" for March 5 publication — only five days after Cohen delivered his riveting public testimony on Capitol Hill. "For us, it seemed like an important historic moment that will have big demand no matter what you think about Cohen," said Diversion CEO Scott Waxman. No advance money will be paid to Cohen or any of his congressional interrogators for the book. Remember: Michael Cohen is a liar. Michael Cohen is, to remind everyone, a convicted liar. He lied to the very body before which he is testifying this week. He did it early, often, and with great panache while employed by Donald Trump — and in many cases was employed to serve that very function. Many in the press rightly spent months, if not years, accusing Cohen of the very thing we now insist (again rightly), that our vaunted justice system proved true: that he lies. But mark my words, few in the media will bring the same skepticism to what he said last week about Trump before Congress. Many will believe every word as proof the president is a criminal. But why? Why is Cohen suddenly believable? Trump says Cohen's newly revealed book proposal blows up testimony: 'Totally discredited!' President Trump on Friday [3/1/2019] blasted Michael Cohen over a newly reported book proposal that apparently painted the president in a positive light, saying his former lawyer's pitch contradicts this week's congressional testimony and renders him "totally discredited." "Wow, just revealed that Michael Cohen wrote 'a love letter to Trump' manuscript for a new book that he was pushing. Written and submitted long after Charlottesville and Helsinki, his phony reasons for going rogue. Book is exact opposite of his fake testimony, which is now a lie!" Trump tweeted Friday [3/1/2019]. Michael Cohen's Lying Circus: A Dispassionate Review. Tragically, notwithstanding recent efforts at raising public awareness of the scourge of toxic imbecility, the spread of this debilitating disease has intensified, especially in the minds of those whose symptoms are manifested in Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). Nowhere is this acceleration of the outbreak on clearer display than in the Left's rave reviews for the debut of the off-Broadway show trial, "Michael Cohen's Lying Circus," which will be playing a limited engagement in select venues in our nation's capital. Michael Cohen demolishes the Russia collusion conspiracy — Will anyone be fired for lies? Michael Cohen spent a decade as Trump's high-profile lobbyer, toady, defender and personal attorney. And then one day, he decided that he hated Donald Trump and became Donald Trump's mortal enemy. A big change. How did that happen? Well, Cohen told Congress this week that he had a kind of a road to Damascus experience. He was personally and morally offended by what his boss said on two occasions. First, after the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, that was the summer of 2017 and later, when he watched Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland about a year later. Those two scandals, both of them fraudulent, entirely manufactured by the left and its servants in the media, changed Michael Cohen's mind forever. Lynne Patton: "Michael Cohen turned on the President because Mueller threatened to throw his wife in jail for up to 30 years". The appearance of long-time Trump confidante Lynne Patton at the congressional testimony of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen created a considerable stir amid Washington DC. However, the context of her appearance takes on even more drama when considered against Patton's Facebook post from January 18th of this year: [...] Heir to infamous mob family predicts 'rat' Michael Cohen might have big problems in prison. Once President Donald Trump's disgraced former attorney Michael Cohen reports to prison in May to serve a 3-year-old sentence for campaign finance violations and tax evasion, among other charges, he may be in store for some painfully deep trouble, according to Giovanni Gambino. Speaking with the Daily Mail early Wednesday morning, a few short hours before Cohen testified publicly to the House Oversight Committee about the president and his alleged crimes, the Gambino crime family heir warned that prison inmates hate "rats." Why 1 simple lie by Michael Cohen could invalidate his entire testimony. In order for Michael Cohen to be seen as a credible and reliable source on Donald Trump's business dealings, political activities and character — both in and out of the White House — the President's former fixer must be viewed as a changed man, someone who lied, yes, but has now seen the light and spent his House hearing on Tuesday [2/26/2019] telling the truth and nothing but the truth about his former boss. Under that narrative, Cohen was ONCE a liar — to protect Trump — but the scales have fallen from his eyes and now he is on the side of facts and truth. Where Is House Ethics Probe into Adam Schiff? During his grudge-airing, redemption-seeking spectacle on Wednesday [2/27/2019], Michael Cohen admitted he was in cahoots with Democratic lawmakers prior to giving his congressional testimony. "We spoke with Chairman [Elijah] Cummings and the [Democratic] Party," Trump's former lawyer confessed to Representative Jody Hice (R-Ga.). "We spoke with Chairman [Adam] Schiff and his people as well." Under further questioning by Rep. James Jordan (R-Ohio), Cohen acknowledged he "spoke to Mr. Schiff about topics that were going to be raised at the upcoming hearing." Jordan clarified that rather than simply discuss the logistics of the hearing, Schiff coached the witness on "what [he was] going to talk about." Latest Hoaxer Michael Cohen Given 7-Hour Congressional Floor. A Trump-hating Congress needed to bring their visceral hatred to an all-time high crescendo. Hoaxer Jussie Smollett tried but got caught in the act by Chicago cops, so working with Hillary Clinton's former lawyer Lanny Davis, Congress brought in Michael Cohen. Cohen's hoax lasted for seven hours, during which Georgia Congressman Jody Hice said of his testimony: "It's a shameful mockery". You won't see this video anywhere on the mainstream or social media today. [Video clip] Michael Cohen Hearing Marks the End of Government 'Oversight'. Michael Cohen's testimony before the House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday yielded very little in terms of new information about alleged misconduct by President Donald Trump or his 2016 presidential campaign. If anything, Cohen's testimony hurt the case against the president. Cohen said that he had no direct evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. He also appeared to lie several times (again). The media, too, lost. They billed Cohen's appearance as a climactic moment — then struggled to salvage bits and pieces of their shattered narratives from the wreckage of his testimony. Cohen told the committee that Trump had not actually told him directly to lie to Congress. He also admitted there was no evidence, other than the word of a convicted liar (himself), that Trump had ever directed that "hush money" be paid to Stormy Daniels and others. Michael Cohen's Traveling Mendacity Show. Michael Cohen is back in town and, as expected, put on a Pecksniffian public performance Wednesday [2/27/2019] for an appreciative audience consisting of Democrats, the media, and miscellaneous TDS sufferers. Assisted by that preeminent paragon of veracity, Lanny Davis, he pitched several patent specifics of his own invention that he offered as a remedy for the dread disease that has ravaged the Beltway for two years — the Trump Presidency. Cohen peddled his special swamp juice with the same pious solemnity with which he perjured himself before Congress about an aborted Moscow real estate deal involving Trump and his construction company. Michael Cohen's Morality Play. "This is a story of redemption." That's how Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney characterized the testimony Donald Trump's longtime attorney, Michael Cohen, delivered before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday. The president's former fixer couldn't have asked for more. Cohen has been throwing himself upon the mercy of The Resistance ever since it became clear that he would face criminal charges related to his personal misconduct. To avoid an excessive sentence, Cohen had to share with federal prosecutors all he knew about the president. But in turning on his former employer and the party he leads, Cohen sacrificed his relationships on the right. He needed a new set of friends, to say nothing of donors to his legal defense fund. And so Trump's attorney has embarked on a nakedly cynical campaign of emotional manipulation stimulating all the anti-Trump left's pleasure centers. Michael Cohen Admits to Coordinating Scripted Testimony With Lanny Davis, Adam Schiff and Elijah Cummings. Those who follow closely will note Speaker Pelosi's plan to weaponize congressional oversight is a carefully orchestrated campaign with three key figures: Adam Schiff, Elijah Cummings and Jerry Nadler. Representative Jody Hice questions Michael Cohen about the construct and background of his congressional appearance. Within the answer Cohen admits his handler, democrat operative Lanny Davis, coordinated with key congressional leadership to include Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings and HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff. [Video clip] The Three Times When Michael Cohen's Testimony Accidentally Exonerated President Trump. Because attorney-client privilege is apparently no longer a thing, Michael Cohen, President Trump's former lawyer, is on Capitol Hill this week testifying against his old employer. The media tells us that his testimony is like a carpet bomb on the Trump Administration, full of explosive and damning revelations that will surely spell doom for the President. Something closer to the opposite is the case, I think. Michael Cohen Admits Discussing 'Topics' with Adam Schiff Before Testimony. Michael Cohen, former personal attorney to President Donald Trump, admitted that he discussed with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) "topics that might come up" in preparation for his Wednesday [2/27/2019] hearing before the House Oversight Committee. "I spoke to Mr. Schiff about topics that were going to be raised at the upcoming hearing," Cohen told Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) when pressed about the pair's past discussion. "Whoa," Jordan responded. "Not just what time you're going to show up, but what you're going to talk about? Whoa." GOP reps refer Michael Cohen to DOJ for alleged perjury during hearing. House Oversight Committee Republicans on Thursday referred ex-Trump attorney Michael Cohen to the Justice Department for alleged perjury, claiming he lied during sworn testimony before the panel a day earlier about a number of issues including his ambitions to work in the Trump administration and contracts with foreign entities. Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., penned a letter Thursday [2/28/2019] to newly sworn-in Attorney General William Barr, citing evidence that Cohen "committed perjury" during his hearing before the committee on Wednesday. Cohen Admits He Can't Corroborate His Allegations Against Trump. President Donald Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen admitted Wednesday [2/27/2019] he is unable to corroborate allegations that the president discussed elements of WikiLeaks' email hacks with Roger Stone. "How can we corroborate what you're saying?" Democratic Rep. Deborah Wasserman Schultz of Florida asked Cohen, referring to the former Trump confidant's allegations that the president was aware of Stone's contact with WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange. She is among a slew of Democrats and Republicans grilling Cohen during a congressional hearing. "I don't know, but I suspect the special counsel's office and other government agencies have the information that you're seeking," Cohen said in reply. Cohen admits he has no evidence Trump colluded with Russians, 'but I have my suspicions'. President Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen said Wednesday that he has no evidence suggesting his former boss colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential election, but that he has his "suspicions." "Questions have been raised about whether I know of direct evidence that Mr. Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia. I do not, and I want to be clear. But I have my suspicions," Cohen told lawmakers. There are "so many dots that all seem to lead" in the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin, he added. On the eve of congressional testimony, Michael Cohen disbarred for lying to Congress. Michael Cohen, the former longtime personal attorney of President Trump, was officially disbarred Tuesday [2/26/2019]. A panel of five justices at the New York Supreme Court ruled that Cohen had ceased to be an attorney when he was convicted in federal court in November 2018 of making false statements to Congress. The judicial panel ruled that Cohen "ceased to be an attorney upon his federal conviction of making false statements to the United States Congress." Back in August 2018, President Trump tweeted: "If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don't retain the services of Michael Cohen!" Today, the justices said that Cohen's name would be "stricken from the roll of attorneys and counselors-at-law in the State of New York." Cohen Slapped With Criminal Referral Mid-Testimony Over FARA Violation. Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen was hit with a criminal referral for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) following a heated exchange during Cohen's Wednesday testimony in front of the House Oversight Committee. Michael Cohen Opening Statement, Worded for Maximum Political Damage. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has worked closely with House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings to use President Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen as the cornerstone to a carefully planned democrat impeachment effort. Working collaboratively with the current U.S. Department of Justice, Speaker Pelosi organized a deferment of prison sentence for Mr. Cohen so he could testify to the House committees. [...] The 20 pages of toxic and disparaging opening remarks are specifically and carefully worded by Cohen and his political handler Lanny Davis to create maximum political damage. Together with personal documents (and recordings) Cohen will provide, this pre-planned effort is what U.S. media will use to assist their ideological allies in congress. Michael Cohen Plans to Call Trump a 'Con Man' and a 'Cheat' in Congressional Testimony. Michael D. Cohen plans to tell Congress on Wednesday [2/27/2019] that President Trump is a "con man" and a "cheat" who knew a longtime adviser was communicating with WikiLeaks — and who implicitly instructed Mr. Cohen to lie about a Trump Tower project in Moscow that was underway during the 2016 presidential campaign. The extraordinary testimony will take place when Mr. Cohen, the president's former lawyer and fixer, publicly appears before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. An advance copy of Mr. Cohen's testimony was obtained Tuesday night by reporters at multiple news organizations, including The New York Times, just as Mr. Trump began meetings in Vietnam before convening with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. Get Trump! Democrats, Media Go All In On Michael Cohen. The major broadcast television networks will air live coverage Wednesday of the Democrat-led House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing with former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen who has turned on his former client since being targeted by federal prosecutors. The cable news networks will also carry the hearing live in which Cohen will reportedly say of President Trump, "He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat." Cohen hearings [are] designed to keep [the] public in [the] dark about Russia. Former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen is scheduled to appear before three congressional committees this week before he heads to jail to serve a sentence for tax evasion and lying to Congress. [...] It would be a great service if the Cohen appearances helped increase the store of public information on the Trump-Russia furor. But even though Cohen is a key figure in the matter — his name is mentioned 24 times in the so-called Trump dossier — the hearings appear designed to prevent the public from learning anything new about the Russia matter. Michael Cohen Disbarred Following Felony Conviction For Lying Under Oath. Donald Trump's former-attorney-turned rat has been disbarred, reported the New York Post. [...] According to the law, any lawyer "who shall be convicted of a felony ... shall upon such conviction, cease to be an attorney and counsellor-at-law, or to be competent to practice law as such." Mr. Cohen can file for reinstatement in seven years — or sooner if he were to be pardoned (not going to happen). Michael Cohen was sentenced to 36 months in prison for lying to Congress and other charges related to his taxi medallion company in December and will report to prison on May 6th. Cell signal puts Cohen outside Prague around time of purported Russian meeting. A mobile phone traced to President Donald Trump's former lawyer and "fixer" Michael Cohen briefly sent signals ricocheting off cell towers in the Prague area in late summer 2016, at the height of the presidential campaign, leaving an electronic record to support claims that Cohen met secretly there with Russian officials, four people with knowledge of the matter say. During the same period of late August or early September, electronic eavesdropping by an Eastern European intelligence agency picked up a conversation among Russians, one of whom remarked that Cohen was in Prague, two people familiar with the incident said. Rebuttal: Beyond rebuttal: More: Why Did Michael Cohen Plead Guilty to Campaign Finance Crimes That Aren't Campaign Finance Crimes? On Wednesday [12/12/2018], a district court judge in Manhattan accepted Michael Cohen's guilty plea to political crimes and sentenced him to three years in the American gulag. But if the two campaign finance crimes to which he pleaded guilty are not really crimes, why did he plead guilty to them? And what precedents does this case establish that can be used against political enemies in the future? Representative Elijah Cummings Outlines Democrat Plan to Remove President Trump via Michael Cohen. It was curious to see Michael Cohen walk out of his sentencing hearing last week without having to report to jail/prison for the punishment therein. [...] In the prosecutorial agreement within the Cohen case, there obviously remains the fulfillment of terms. Michael Cohen doesn't report to prison until March 6th, 2019. Why the exceptional judicial delay and generosity? Michael Cohen's farewell interview was an embarrassment. When you've admitted to years of lying, running a shady taxi medallion scheme, and other deceptions, there's not much left to do other than go far, far away and hope the public forgets. Cohen instead went on ABC's "Good Morning America" to look pathetic. [...] Cohen had misled Congress about the timeline of a failed business deal he pursued in Russia on behalf of the Trump Organization (putting us the closest we've come so far to demonstrating any meaningful connection between President Trump and the Kremlin). For that, he was given a paltry two months in prison, which were to be served concurrent with the rest of his time. So, he effectively got no time for that one. There is no way to make this not look bad for Cohen, though he put his heart into trying. Robert Mueller's case against Michael Cohen has very little to do with Trump or campaign finance violations. President Trump and the 2016 campaign amount to a footnote in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's sentence filings on Michael Cohen, despite the news media's heavily overstated narrative that the whole thing is about to blow the lid on a White House "felony." The documents are almost exclusively an indictment of Cohen as a tax evader and serial liar. The link to Trump, or of any allegation of wrongdoing on his behalf, has nowhere near the clarity liberals want you to believe. Cohen lied, broke the law and used Trump to get rich — and now blames Trump for his troubles. In his federal court sentencing hearing Wednesday, President Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen cut a tragic figure of his own making as he tried to convince a judge to spare him from prison for a host of crimes ranging from tax fraud to bank fraud to lying to Congress. He claimed he was a trusting soul undone by the ambition and the machinations of an evil man — Donald Trump. It played out like a modern take on the Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire." Larry O'Connor: Michael Cohen Sentencing 'Is Nothing But a Power Grab' to Get Rid of Trump. While filling in for radio host Mark Levin on his nationally syndicated radio talk show, "The Mark Levin Show," on Wednesday night [12/12/2018], WMAL radio host Larry O'Connor, who also has his own show, "The Larry O'Connor Show," said that the sentencing of Michael Cohen, the former attorney of President Donald Trump, was "nothing but a power grab" to get rid of President Trump. "This is really a power grab from the Southern District of New York," Larry O'Connor said. "Yes, the intention is to get rid of President Trump, but, also, let's face it, if you believe and agree and love the separation of powers as articulated in our U.S. Constitution, this is nothing but a power grab." Cohen's pleas concocted by prosecutors to snare Trump. I'm experiencing 1998 déjà vu as prosecutors once again work overtime to turn extramarital affairs and the efforts to keep them secret into impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors. Unable to get the witnesses to compose the stories they want, today's prosecutors are discovering they can simply compose the crimes by manipulating the pleas of men desperate to protect their families. The Michael Cohen sentencing memo took aim directly at both Cohen and President Donald Trump. It was used, unethically, to cast the president as directing a criminal conspiracy to make "secret and illegal" payments. Sentencing memos are not supposed to use secret grand jury info to point fingers at those who are not being sentenced, but that's exactly what these did. Defeat and the Dossier Explain Everything. Donald Trump's former consiglieri Michael Cohen, along with being charged with tax avoidance and improper business deals, allegedly is guilty also of trying to leverage money and attention by exaggerating his influence with candidate and later President Trump. In other words, Cohen to spec followed the standard creepy daily fare for Washington and New York wannabe fixers. But did we need Robert Mueller's 18 months and $40 million to uncover and redirect to federal attorneys what was largely self-evident? Could not the U.S. government long ago, without the prompt of a special counsel, have uncovered that Michael Cohen did not fully pay his taxes — in the manner of an Al Sharpton, Timothy Geithner, and Tom Daschle? Why Trump is likely to be indicted by Manhattan US Attorney. The major takeaway from the 40-page sentencing memorandum filed by federal prosecutors Friday [12/7/2018] for Michael Cohen, President Trump's former personal attorney, is this: The president is very likely to be indicted on a charge of violating federal campaign finance laws. It has been obvious for some time that President Trump is the principal subject of the investigation still being conducted by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Cohen earlier pleaded guilty to multiple counts of business and tax fraud, violating campaign finance law, and making false statements to Congress regarding unsuccessful efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. New Poll: Half of Voters Don't Believe Mueller Has Anything on Trump. Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation is reportedly heating up again, with a number of reports indicating he's finally getting ready to conclude nearly two years of work on the 2016 presidential election. Last week President Trump's longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to lying during congressional testimony. This is the second plea deal for Cohen after he pleaded guilty to tax fraud and campaign finance violations in August. In addition, Mueller's office announced former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort violated terms of his plea agreement. But according to half of Americans watching this saga play out, Mueller doesn't seem to have any evidence to bring charges against President Trump. For Trump, Cohen Plea Deal's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Exoneration. Contrary to media speculation that Robert Mueller is closing in on President Trump, the special prosecutor's plea deal with Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen offers further evidence that the Trump campaign did not collude with Russians during the 2016 election, according to congressional investigators and former prosecutors. Where's the Beef, Mueller? The Mueller investigation remains a "collusion" probe without any collusion. For all of the media's heavy breathing about Thursday's news of a Michael Cohen guilty plea, it doesn't get Mueller any closer to the stated goal of his investigation. On CNN, where its programming is an endless game of anti-Trump gotcha, Jeff Zucker's puppets recited his mandated talking point that Trump's fixer "may" have "broken" everything, blah, blah, blah. But the very conjectural character of this feverish chatter indicated the hollowness of the story. If the plea contained any evidence of collusion, the Hillary donors who make up much of Mueller's staff would surely have leaked it to CNN by now. Does Mueller Have an October Surprise? The investigation that was ostensibly initiated to ascertain if the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to affect the 2016 election has been ongoing for twenty-seven months. Seventeen months of which have been in the hands of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his Democrat phalanx of investigators and prosecutors spending in excess of $1.4 million a month.) This prolonged inquisition has produced no evidence or indictments supporting the collusion allegation. Yet the investigation marches on with no end in sight. [...] Based on his insistence that Trump testify in what is obviously a perjury trap, the innumerable leaks emanating from Mueller's office, the conviction of Paul Manafort on unrelated charges and the coerced guilty plea by Michael Cohen again on unrelated charges, Robert Mueller appears to have a much greater animus toward Donald Trump than Lawrence Walsh toward Ronald Reagan or George Bush. Michael Cohen's lawyer has done real damage to the case against Trump. One of the most bizarre aspects of the investigations engulfing the Trump administration is the lawyers involved. Here we have a presidency on the line, and this is Trump's team? The top legal spokesmen for each side are ... Rudolph W. Giuliani and Lanny Davis!? Up until this point, though, Giuliani was the Great Contradictor and Davis was merely a colorful character. Now that has changed in a big way. In a new interview with The Washington Post's Tom Hamburger and Rosalind S. Helderman, Davis is backing off two massive claims he made in recent weeks, including that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen has told people he witnessed President Trump being informed of Donald Trump Jr.'s 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer before it happened. Michael Cohen, the Rabbit in Robert Mueller's Hat. People are wondering why Cohen waited so long before turning up at CNN with scratchy audio recordings he claims to have secretly recorded on former, unsuspecting client Donald J. Trump. It's the Midterms that kept Mike The Rabbit waiting so long. Michael Cohen's testimony is Mueller's Special Counsel's last chance to keep the Russians-stole-the-election conspiracy alive in order to get more Democrats returned to power in Midterms, and to keep investigations going all the way through to 2020 presidential elections. Trump won't lose supporters over Manafort, Cohen — despite what liberal media are spewing. The liberal media suggest that President Trump is on a sinking ship and will be soon be losing the support of a large number of his followers — the group Hillary Clinton dismissively described as "a basket full of deplorables." Don't believe it. The conviction Tuesday of former Trump presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort on tax and bank fraud charges — and the guilty plea that Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen entered the same day to charges of violating federal campaign finance laws, tax evasion and making a false statement to a bank — won't shake support for Trump among the millions of Americans who voted for him and appreciate his many accomplishments in office. Trump legal team makes case to prosecute Comey, others for lying after Cohen guilty plea. Former and current members of President Trump's legal team have compiled research to make the case that former FBI Director James B. Comey misled Congress in his testimony and is not a reliable witness for special counsel Robert Mueller. The lawyers last year tried to persuade Mr. Mueller to investigate Mr. Comey, his former colleague, to no avail. The Trump-Comey war took on new dimensions last week as Mr. Mueller won a guilty plea from former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who admitted to lying to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about a proposed election-year Trump Organization Moscow hotel deal. Why is Michael Cohen prosecuted when Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder and Lois Lerner were not? With a Republican president in place and soon-to-be Democrat-run House, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has conveniently remembered that they have the ability to prosecute people who lie to Congress. This was a power they had inexplicably forgotten about during the 10 years that Democrats were benefiting from witnesses who lied. No doubt there should be consequences and accountability if you testify to Congress under oath and blatantly lie or violate the law. But the DOJ seems to have different standards based on which party's political fortunes will be impacted. It is this unequal application of justice that is dividing the country and threatens peace. Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former attorney, struck a plea deal with the DOJ for lying to Congress. But what about all the other egregious cases of misconduct interacting with Congress? Why weren't those pursued or prosecuted? Another nothing-burger? Catherine Herridge breaks down Michael Cohen's guilty plea 'bombshell'. Early Thursday morning word broke that President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen had pleaded guilty to lying to Congress during its investigation into possible Russian collusion. Following the announcement, the perpetually hysterical left broke into cheers of gleeful applause over the belief that the president would soon be the next one to be indicted. Another Turbulent Week with Some Big Mysteries. The Special Counsel keeps rolling with indictments that have nothing to do with the original charge — certainly because the only collusion with Russia was by Hillary. Each time the anti-Trumpers are certain the President's end is nigh. This week's indictment of [Michael] Cohen is of a piece with that history. On Hush Money, the President's Best Defense Is Lack of Criminal Intent. You can be forgiven if you've forgotten there even is a Mueller investigation. Just a week ago, the country was on tenterhooks as the jury in Paul Manafort's trial headed into the weekend without having reached a verdict. Would they hang? Had Special Counsel Robert Mueller overreached? Did federal judge T. S. Ellis of the Eastern District of Virginia undermine the prosecutors? Such is the permanent frenzy of the Trump news cycle that, even with Tuesday's convictions, Manafort and Mueller seem like old news. They've been superseded by Michael Cohen's guilty plea; specifically, by the fallout of Cohen's having implicated the president in felony campaign-finance offenses during his allocution in Manhattan federal court late Tuesday afternoon — an otherworldly media moment, simultaneous with the jury verdict in Manafort's trial 200 miles south. Mueller Cannot Have Credibility If He Ignores Hillary's Crimes. This investigation is absent of all credibility because it specifically ignores what happened on the Hillary side! Without what happened on the Hillary side, they would not have an investigation of Trump. That's why! There is a dossier — and, by the way, do you know why Cohen's caught up in this? The dossier mentions Cohen! The dossier, this phony, unprovable piece of Hillary Clinton opposition research also mentions Cohen. That's how he gets lassoed into this. War of Attrition Against President Trump. Precisely how does Bill Clinton's main legal fixer turn up as Michael Cohen's attorney in a plea bargain with a special prosecutor? If you put that kind of plot line in a political thriller, the public would laugh you off the newsstand book racks. Nonetheless, we now have Lanny Davis, special counsel to the president for Bill Clinton during 1996-1998, declaring to CNN: "It's my observation that Mr. Cohen has knowledge that would be of interest to the special counsel about the issue of whether Donald Trump, ahead of time, knew about the hacking of emails, which is a computer crime." On Tuesday [8/21/2018] Davis told MSNBC that Cohen knew about "the possibility of a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the American democracy system in the 2016 election." Cohen Attorney Lanny Davis Is Registered Foreign Agent for Pro-Russian Oligarch Wanted by US Government and Linked to Putin. On Tuesday [8/21/2018] former Trump Attorney Michael Cohen, on the advice of his attorney and Clinton advisor Lanny Davis, surrendered himself to the FBI after it was reported he reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors. [...] Cohen attorney Lanny Davis is a registered foreign agent for Dmytro Firtash, a pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarch wanted by the US government. Dershowitz: Candidate Entitled To Pay Hush Money, Committed No Election Crime. Alan Dershowitz said the only campaign violation that could have happened is if former Trump attorney Michael Cohen did break a campaign finance law on his own volution and called the situation a "Catch-22" on MSNBC this afternoon [8/22/2018]. Cohen Attorney Backtracks On Claim That Trump Had Advance Knowledge of Russian Hacking. Lanny Davis, an attorney for Michael Cohen, is backtracking from his stunning claim that President Donald Trump had advance knowledge of Russian hacking efforts. During interviews on Tuesday [8/21/2018] and Wednesday, Davis laid out a grave allegation against Trump, saying that Cohen had information that would be of interest to special counsel Robert Mueller, including about Russian hacking of Democrats' emails. In an interview Tuesday with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, Davis said Cohen, a former lawyer for Trump, has "knowledge about the computer crime of hacking and whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on." Lanny Davis: Michael Cohen Never Went To Prague As Steele Dossier Claims. Lanny Davis, the Clinton-connected attorney for Michael Cohen, said Wednesday [8/22/2018] that the former Trump lawyer had never been to Prague, as the infamous Steele dossier alleges. "Thirteen references to Mr. Cohen are false in the dossier, but he has never been to Prague in his life," Davis said Wednesday in an interview on Bloomberg. The statement is a significant denial given that, according to Davis, Cohen has turned over a new leaf by deciding to discuss his work on behalf of President Donald Trump. MSNBC Keeps Lying About the Dossier Being Corroborated. An MSNBC panelist named Paul Butler, a Georgetown Professor, stated on the Joy Reid show that the Steele dossier "keeps getting corroborated" by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and reporters. That is not at all true. Nothing of significance has been confirmed. Even Jim Comey said the FBI could not verify the document. Earlier this week, Lanny Davis, the Clinton mob lawyer now representing Cohen, asserted that the dossier's allegations about Cohen are "100 percent" false. Loose Ends #44. As I said in the previous note, I've been on the road all week and mostly ill-informed about the breaking Trump stories, and much else. So all I have are some more Loose Ends to file. With one caveat. I hadn't been paying attention to the fact that Michael Cohen's attorney is Lanny Davis. Lanny Davis??? Seriously? What is this — some kind of parallel universe remake of the Clinton sex scandals of the 1990s? We all recall how that ended, don't we? How long before Cohen's lawyer changes his story again? Can Michael Cohen give evidence that President Trump knowingly colluded with Russia, or does he have no knowledge whatsoever? It seems to depend on what story his lawyer is teasing at the moment. Following Cohen's guilty plea Tuesday, attorney Lanny Davis said on MSNBC that his client is willing to speak with special counsel Robert Mueller about a "conspiracy to collude," citing his "knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest." That seemed to confirm July 27 CNN and CBS reports that Cohen was prepared to testify that Trump knew in advance about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting in which Russians were expected to offer political dirt on Hillary Clinton. Davis personally confirmed those stories off the record to The [New York] Post at the time. Except now Davis says it isn't true. Lanny Davis Admits He Lied to the Media About Major Trump Tower Report. Michael Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis admitted on Thursday that he erroneously confirmed a CNN report about Trump's knowledge of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with the Russians. CNN reported on July 27 that Cohen was prepared to tell Special Counsel Robert Mueller that the president had advance knowledge of the Trump Tower meeting. On Wednesday, Davis said that the reporting was "mixed up" and that his client had no information regarding when Trump knew about the meeting. According to the New York Post, however, Davis himself confirmed CNN's report as an anonymous source when it was first published. Davis is now apologizing on the record for confirming something he did not know to be true. Newest Charity Case For The Resistance: Michael Cohen. If it's any comfort, it's not like he's making Peter Strzok money or anything. Still, he's more than $100,000 richer than he was yesterday [8/21/2018] thanks to [an] infernal GoFundMe page, proof that in America 2018 even a rich, crooked New York lawyer can rake in the ResistanceBucks so long as he's performing the very important task of [annoying] the left's least favorite person. Does Michael Cohen's Guilty Plea Justify All The Trump Impeachment Talk? Talk of impeaching President Trump is everywhere. But Democrats have been pining for Trump's impeachment since before he even set foot in the White House. Michael Cohen's guilty plea is just the latest excuse to bring it up. Why Michael Cohen Agreed to Plead Guilty — And Implicate the President. Adding to the pressure, David Pecker, the chairman of American Media Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer, provided prosecutors with details about payments Mr. Cohen arranged with women who alleged sexual encounters with President Trump, including Mr. Trump's knowledge of the deals. This account of how Mr. Cohen went from a pugnacious defender of the president to turning on Mr. Trump is based on details provided by people close to Mr. Cohen and others briefed on the discussions with prosecutors. For weeks, the president had been distancing himself from Mr. Cohen, including by stopping paying the lawyer's legal fees, making clear amid the pressure that he was on his own. How The Clintons Directed Michael Cohen To Plead Guilty & Implicate President Trump. Weeks earlier D.C. Whispers warned readers of Lanny Davis's sudden appearance at the side of former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen. Mr. Davis is a longtime Clinton operative and as recently as 2016 was helping to manage Hillary Clinton's presidential run. His longstanding ties to the Clintons affords him strong ties with both the Democrat and Republican establishments, vast D.C. lobbying powers, and media moguls. In short, he is as Deep State as Deep State gets. Now he's using Michael Cohen to add manufactured fuel to the "get President Trump" fire as the Clintons sit back and watch and wait. Clinton Mob Lawyer Lanny Davis Sold Out His Client. Some legal experts are saying today that Lanny Davis, Hillary's close friend and general counsel, sold his client Michael Cohen out with a sentence unwarranted by the crimes. Do we have to ask ourselves why? Is it because Hillary Clinton is his client and not Michael Cohen? It's important to note that the verdict and plea in the Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen cases respectively have nothing to do with Russia or collusion. The Manafort trial did not deal with his role as a Trump campaign chairman. In Cohen's case, he said he made the payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougall at the direction of an unidentified candidate. That's not criminal. Democrats Who Support Trump: CNN's Coverage of Cohen, Manafort Is a 'Side Show'. Registered Democrats who support President Donald Trump told CNN its coverage of the president's administration is a "side show" and that they are glad to see the stock market rise and their retirement savings increase. CNN aired footage Friday morning [8/24/2018] of correspondent Jason Carroll speaking with registered Democrats in Pennsylvania praising Trump for improving the economy and looking out for their savings. Eileen and Richard Sorokas supported former President Barack Obama during both elections, but then switched over and supported Trump because of his promises to improve the economy. The trial(s) of Paul Manafort As Impeachment Ends, It's Time to Correct These Nine Injustices. [#1] Commute Paul Manafort's sentence. Paul Manafort has spent most of his time in solitary confinement since his arrest in 2017. As noted by the National Review, "Everyone knows this prosecution is politically motivated. [The prosecutor] hates the president and wants to use solitary confinement in a hellhole with violent criminals to squeeze Manafort into testifying against the president." Reason magazine, no fan of either Trump or Manafort, has called this torture. Enough is enough. He's served years in brutal conditions for white collar crimes. Commute his sentence. Major Update: Was Manafort A Plant, Willing Or Otherwise? Long ago a trusted source told me that the Clinton campaign had very early on come to the conclusion that Trump would be the most dangerous GOP candidate, from a Clinton perspective. That would have meant that the Clinton organization would have mobilized to take Trump down, and the Russia narrative seems to have been decided on at an early date. Thus we see the persistent attempt by Felix Sater to somehow link Trump to the moribund Trump Moscow project, the Trump Tower meeting with Veselnitskaya, etc. The usual story is that Manafort was introduced into the Trump campaign through the efforts of Tom Barrack, a Syrian born real estate magnate who was friends with both Trump and Manafort. Barrack had been a major help to Ivanka and Jared Kushner in a difficult real estate situation and used that connection to urge the Kushners to get Barrack onto the campaign. Sound familiar? Sound possible? Of course. The question is: Was there an ulterior motive to all this? Is an FBI Interview a G-Man's License to Lie? [Scroll down] Strangely, there was no such transcript of what [Paul] Manafort had said in his interviews. This made it difficult to reconstruct what his responses to questioning had been, let alone determine whether they were truthful. But if there was no transcript, surely the court could consult a videotape of his interrogation, the sort of recording that is standard practice for local police who are interviewing, say, a suspected car thief. And if there was no videotape for the judge to watch, surely there was, at the very least, an audiotape. But no. The bureau has insisted instead, for more than half a century, on summarizing its interrogations, of everyone from witnesses to targets, in a type of memo designated an FD-302 or just "302." New York prosecutors throw out Constitution to charge Manafort. This month, the greatest off Broadway production should be titled "The Prosecutors," starring Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and New York Attorney General Letitia James. As in another dramatic comedy, "The Producers," the state case against former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort seems designed to fail, leaving its prosecutors with the convenient windfall of public support and none of the burden. NY's political prosecution of Manafort should scare us all. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has indicted Paul Manafort for mortgage fraud and more than a dozen other state felonies. This is a nakedly political prosecution. Democrats, who run the Empire State, are apoplectic that President Trump could pardon his former campaign manager, who has been sentenced to 90 months in prison in the Mueller probe. The federal charges had nothing to do with the rationale for the special counsel's investigation, which involves Russia's interference in the 2016 election and any possible Trump campaign coordination in that effort. But there is no doubt that the convictions and sentences, which resulted from separate but related proceedings in the Eastern District of Virginia and the District of Columbia, are valid. In Washington on Wednesday [3/13/2019], Judge Amy Berman Jackson added 43 months of incarceration to the 47-months of imprisonment Judge T.S. Ellis imposed in Alexandria last week. Paul Manafort Was an Agent of Ukraine, Not Russia. According to the indictment Robert Mueller filed against him, Manafort was an unregistered "agent of the Government of Ukraine." He also functioned as an agent of Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine's president from 2010 to 2014, and of two political parties, the Party of Regions and its successor, the Opposition Bloc. Manafort was not an unregistered agent of Russia. Mueller never alleged that Manafort was a clandestine operative of the Kremlin. He worked for Ukraine, not Putin. Indeed, for much of his time in Ukraine, he pushed his clients against Putin's interests. Federal Judge Just Slapped The Anti-Trump Collusion Conspiracy Hoax In The Face. For months the Establishment Media and its Democrat Party cohorts had breathlessly declared Paul Manafort was going away for "a very long time" while attempting to insinuate Mr. Manafort's legal troubles were directly linked to his time with the Trump campaign. The truth is they weren't. Manafort faced trial for matters totally unrelated to President Trump but rather on decades-old financial dealings. And this week a federal judge said as much while also handing out a relatively light sentence that has the far left seething. Judge Ellis rebuked Special Counsel Meuller when sentencing Paul Manafort. Judge T.S. Ellis, a Reagan appointee to the Federal District Court for Eastern Virginia, is well known for speaking his mind. Yesterday, in sentencing Paul Manafort, he rebuked Team Mueller's harsh sentence recommendation of 19-24 years' imprisonment as "excessive," and instead set a lot of progressives' hair on fire by imposing a sentence of 47 months and recommended counting the nine months of time served (much of it in solitary confinement, imposed by Judge Amy Berman Jackson in a separate case in D.C. District Court) against that total, meaning just over three years of imprisonment. The 'Otherwise Blameless Life' of Paul Manafort. "He has lived an otherwise blameless life," said Judge T. S. Ellis as he sentenced Paul Manafort to just 47 months in prison on Thursday [3/7/2019]. In an otherwise blameless life, Paul Manafort lobbied on behalf of the tobacco industry and wangled millions in tax breaks for corporations. In an otherwise blameless life, he helped Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos bolster his image in Washington after he assassinated his primary political opponent. In an otherwise blameless life, he worked to keep arms flowing to the Angolan generalissimo Jonas Savimbi, a monstrous leader bankrolled by the apartheid government in South Africa. While Manafort helped portray his client as an anti-communist "freedom fighter," Savimbi's army planted millions of land mines in peasant fields, resulting in 15,000 amputees. Mueller's Final Manafort Filings Are Scant On Russia Details, Never Mention 'Trump' Or 'Collusion'. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's final filings against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort are likely bad news for Manafort, but may be — oddly — good news for President Donald Trump. Mueller and his team made their final required filing in Manafort's case late Friday, submitting a "government sentencing memorandum" to the United States District Court in Washington, D.C., justifying their request for a harsh, 17-year prison sentence against Manafort. In it, the government argues that Manafort "chose repeatedly and knowingly to violate the law — whether the laws proscribed garden-variety crimes such as tax fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and bank fraud, or more esoteric laws that he nevertheless was intimately familiar with, such as the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)," both before and after he was under scrutiny by the Special Counsel. Ken Starr: The hammer is about to drop on Paul Manafort after Mueller learns he was a mole for Trump. Former independent counsel Ken Starr told CNN on Wednesday that Paul Manafort is in even deeper trouble with Robert Mueller after it was revealed Tuesday that his lawyer has been briefing the president's legal team about what he's been telling federal investigators. "You at this stage belong to the prosecutors. You're now inside the tent, you're part of the team," Starr said of Manafort. "So to be leaking information to the lawyers outside the team, that's going to be viewed very seriously and obviously is." Manafort/Assange Drama Proves Media Will Buy Any Russia Conspiracy Story, No Matter Its Flaws. Many media figures have swallowed whole, without evidence, a conspiracy theory that Donald Trump became president by treasonously colluding with Russia to steal the 2016 election from its rightful owner, Hillary Clinton. The information operation that pushed this story turned out to have been secretly developed and funded by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, a fact uncovered only through the tenacious digging of Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the face of major opposition from the media and Democrats on the committee. The information operation has been fed to an increasingly compliant and credulous media with nearly no resistance. Fusion GPS is the Clinton- and Democrat-funded group that initiated the Russia collusion story, although it is now, according to congressional testimony, being spearheaded by the Democracy Integrity Project and funded to the tune of $50 million. The Washington Post quietly admitted, buried the news, really, that the operation was funded by George Soros. Hollywood Celebrates Paul Manafort Guilty Plea. Several celebrities took to social media on Friday [9/14/2018] and posted messages celebrating former Trump presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort's decision to plead guilty to a federal conspiracy charge as part of a plea agreement with special counsel Robert Mueller. [...] The White House issued a statement Friday that said the charges against Paul Manafort are unrelated to Mr. Trump's election victory. Paul Manafort's Plea. Former convention delegate manager Paul Manafort, entered into a plea deal today with Special Counsel Robert Mueller for issues related to his lobbying firm and FARA registry violations. The plea has nothing to do with candidate Trump, president-elect Trump, or President Trump. Manafort Deal Looks Like Good News for Trump, Terrible News for Democrats. Something rarely brought up by our utterly useless but still corrupt establishment media is that in order for someone to "flip," that someone has to have the goods on someone else. In other words, if you want to deal your way out of prison time, you have to have something to deal with; you actually have to serve someone's head up on a platter. Nevertheless, all throughout the Russian Collusion Hoax, and every time someone agrees to "cooperate" with Mueller, the media squee like the 14-year-old girls they all are and then intentionally mislead the public by matter-of-factly saying, "This is bad news for Trump." Well, no, actually it is not. Manafort's Guilty Plea. If we assume, for argument's sake, that the special counsel has wanted to make a criminal case on the president (I've never been fully convinced of this), the challenge Mueller has had from the start is that there was no underlying crime to predicate his investigation. He was rashly appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in the uproar over the president's ham-fisted firing of FBI director James Comey. But terminating executive-branch officers is not obstruction; it is a prerogative of the presidency. If it is done abusively or for unsavory motives, that could be grounds for impeachment, but not for criminal prosecution. Ditto harassing the attorney general, contemplating the removal of the special counsel himself, and allegedly weighing in on whether Michael Flynn, the former national-security adviser, should be investigated. We can all agree — or, at least, many of us do agree — that it would be better if the president did not do such things. It should be indisputable, though, that the Constitution endows him with the authority to do them. Paul Manafort may have struck a deal with Robert Mueller. President Trump's ex-campaign chair Paul Manafort tentatively agreed to a plea deal with special counsel Robert Mueller that will head off his upcoming second trial, ABC News reported Thursday [9/13/2018]. The feds were expected to announce the agreement in court Friday, but it remained uncertain whether the international man of intrigue had agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in the Russia probe. The network said Manafort could be pleading guilty to avoid the stress and expense of a second trial following his conviction in Virginia on tax fraud and money laundering charges. Paul Manafort and special counsel reach plea agreement to avert second trial. Paul Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman, pleaded guilty Friday to federal conspiracy charges and agreed to cooperate in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race, prosecutors said Friday, marking a stunning about-face for the former Trump deputy. The plea deal, unveiled in federal court in Washington, will allow Manafort, 69, to avoid a second trial on charges stemming from his lucrative work for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine before he joined the Trump campaign and his subsequent attempts to tamper with witnesses in the case. Bernard Kerik: Why Manafort Was Put in Solitary. In a very small regional jail in Warsaw, Virginia, sits Bob Mueller's big fish, Paul Manafort. Mueller, the U.S. Department of Justice Special Counsel appointed to investigate any possible collusion between Russia and President Donald Trump's campaign, has charged Manafort with multiple counts of conspiracy, money laundering, tax crimes, false statements, and anything else they can wad into a big ball and throw up against the wall to see what sticks. After his arrest, Manafort was placed on house arrest on a $10 million-dollar bail, until the government recently accused him of witness tampering and convinced U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson to revoke his bail, and remand him to jail pending trail. To a casual observer, this would seem justified, however, to anyone that has been through it, or has witnessed the government's selective and political prosecutions over the past few decades, they would tell you that it is all a part of a prosecutorial strategy. Manafort split verdict says nothing on Trump, Russia, and the 2016 election. What does the Paul Manafort divided verdict — guilty on 8 fraud charges with a mistrial declared on the remaining 10 charges — mean for the question of whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to fix the 2016 election? Nothing. Of course, everyone knew that going into the trial. Special counsel Robert Mueller was assigned to investigate "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump." Mueller's authority also covered "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation," plus any issues that might involve obstruction of the investigation. Prosecutors said before the trial that they would not mention the word "Russia" at all during the proceedings, and that was pretty much the case. They also barely mentioned the name Trump, although it came up briefly in the charges that Manafort gave a Chicago banker a spot on a Trump campaign advisory board in exchange for approving an iffy loan. The Week Washington Officially Lost Its Collective Mind. In an orgy of political drama playing out in courtrooms up and down the Acela corridor, President Trump's lawyer and his one-time campaign manager stand convicted of various crimes. In this fever worse than Joe McCarthy's Red Scare, President Trump — therefore — has been officially declared guilty by association! Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump's campaign manager for six minutes during the summer of 2016, was found guilty of a host of crimes dating back more than a decade relating to his various business ventures, none of which has anything to do with President Trump. What is interesting about the case against Mr. Manafort is that prosecutors had declined to pursue some of the charges way back when. But that was before Mr. Manafort betrayed the political establishment by working for Mr. Trump's presidential campaign. Why Trump's supporters won't care about Cohen and Manafort's convictions. Last week, a woman in her mid-40s who lives in a tidy suburban enclave just outside of Columbus, Ohio, summed up her continued support for President Donald Trump despite his morals, values and behavior not matching hers nor matching her expectations she had for any president of the United States. "For decades I have been inspired by aspiring politicians and elected officials who took to the podium or the camera and delivered poetic speeches to earn my trust and my support. They would sway me with expressive words and artfully delivered promises," she said. While the words were beautiful, they never manifested into anything tangible in her community. The Trouble with Impeachment. Paul Manafort, Bannon's predecessor as the top Trump campaign official, was found guilty on August 21 of eight counts of bank and tax fraud. Manafort is the biggest fish special counsel Robert Mueller has landed so far — even if the charges that Manafort hid or failed to disclose millions of dollars in income from his consulting work overseas do not directly reflect Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Jury Finds Manafort Guilty on 8 Counts. After four days of deliberations, the jury reached a verdict on 8 counts and could not make a decision on 10 counts in the tax evasion and bank fraud case against Paul Manafort. Judge Ellis declared a mistrial on 10 counts. The verdict will be read on 8 counts. Paul Manafort is found guilty of eight counts of fraud after first trial brought by Robert Mueller's prosecutors. Paul Manafort was found guilty of fraud by a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, on Tuesday in a bombshell verdict which puts pressure on Donald Trump, whose campaign he once ran. The jury found Manafort guilty of eight counts of bank and tax fraud, which could send the former Trump campaign manager to prison for the rest of his life. He had been charged with a total of 18 counts of fraud. The jury said it was deadlocked on the other 10. REPORT: CNN Intentionally Intimidates Paul Manafort Jury. [Paul] Manafort, who worked for a short time as President Trump's campaign chairman during the 2016 presidential election, has been charged by special counsel Robert Mueller with various financial crimes, none of which have anything to do with Trump or the campaign. Manafort's fate now sits with the jury, and after two days of deliberations, anti-Trump media outlets like CNN are becoming concerned Manafort could be acquitted, which would be a major blow to Mueller's credibility and his ability to remove Trump from office — an outcome the establishment media are desperate to orchestrate. And so, on Thursday [8/18/2018], CNN, along with six other far-left media outlets (the Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Politico, the New York Times, NBC, and the AP) sued for the release of the names and home addresses of all of the Manafort jurors, a move that is both disturbing and almost unprecedented. Manafort's Purge Trial. I don't care much for Paul Manafort. Like his Democratic Party doppelgänger Tony Podesta, he is the kind of pond scum that makes what we call The Swamp The Swamp. Indeed, the two men have worked together in the past, having a natural affinity for exploiting the public interest for maximum profit. I was going to call this column "The Trial of Tony Podesta" to point out the ridiculous disparity that one is on trial but not the other. Judge Ellis couldn't have been more right. This is selective prosecution to get at the president. The charges are outrageously broad and deliberately so. Nevertheless, it doesn't speak well of Trump that he chose to work with a man like Manafort. The Manafort Trial Ends. This week marked the end of the trial of Paul Manafort. The jury is now deliberating his fate. I cannot with certainty opine on the prosecution's handling of the case. I can't because all we know — in the absence of transcripts of the trial — is what reporters have told us. In my experience they often lack the background to adequately apprise us of what went on. Reporters also give more weight generally to salacious details — in this case Manafort's wardrobe and Gates' affairs — than they do to the more significant documentary evidence. Finally, as I learned in covering the Libby trial as an observer, even the best reporters have deadlines, which means their stories are often filed before the cross-examination of key witnesses and begin the next day with the direct examination of the next witness, which means half of what occurred — often the most important part to my mind — is unreported. Nevertheless, from even those accounts, it would appear that the prosecution was hardly a slam dunk, and Manafort's lawyers obviously thought so in closing without presenting any case. In closing arguments, they hit upon those weaknesses. The left's enforcers: CNN sues to reveal names and addresses of Manafort jurors. If it were I, and if the information reported in the news were the same as the information given to the jury, I'd let Manafort walk, given that they should have caught what he was doing a decade ago, not now. The only reason they didn't bother was because one of the Podesta brothers was also involved, and apparently that meant protection for all of them — gag. So prosecute the lazy prosecutors. Because if prosecutors were serious about this case, they'd have done something a long time ago. Since they weren't and the special counsel is on a witch hunt to Get Trump for political reasons, I'd send a message to the prosecutors that this is a political persecution, and Manafort deserves to walk. Very Confident Manafort Defense Won't Bother To Call Defense Witnesses Due To Weak Prosecution Case. It's a move that has both New York and Washington D.C. buzzing. The defense team for Paul Manafort, after listening to federal prosecutors lay out their case against Mr. Manafort for reported banking and tax discrepancies dating back more than ten years, gave the court a collective shrug and moved to have the trial go straight to closing arguments without bothering to call a single defense witness. Though a potentially risky move, it is also a sign the defense believes federal prosecutors fell far short of presenting a case beyond a reasonable doubt — a form of laughing in the prosecution's face. If the jury then returns a verdict of not guilty, it will be a serious embarrassment for the Mueller investigation which was clearly pinning its hopes on getting Manafort to provide something, anything, that Mueller could use to go after President Trump. Banana Republic: Paul Manafort Is Being Held in Tiny Prison Cell with No Reading Material or TV During Trial. Paul Manafort was Donald Trump's campaign manager for two months. Now he must be punished. The US government is holding Paul Manafort in a tiny prison cell during his trial with no reading material and no television. Paul Manafort faces 305 years in prison for tax evasion charges — a crime that typically has an average sentence of 1.5 years. Manafort case is about Manafort — not Trump or the Trump campaign. [A]side from the charges of lying on bank-loan applications, Manafort is charged with failing to pay taxes stemming from his work for a Russian-backed Ukrainian president. Meanwhile, international media attention is focused on this case like it is the trial of the century. So it must be a really big deal and somehow involve Donald Trump or at least his campaign, right? Wrong. The trial involves Manafort's business dealings and tax filings going back to 2006 — long before he ever signed on as a volunteer on the Trump presidential campaign. Paul Manafort Learns That Encrypting Messages Doesn't Matter If the Feds Have a Warrant to Search Your iCloud Account. Federal prosecutors have accused Paul Manafort of witness tampering, alleging that he used WhatsApp and Telegram in an attempt to coordinate his testimony with old business associates. Manafort, Donald Trump's former campaign manager, may have thought that he was being sneaky by using encrypted chat apps, but Manafort just learned the hard way that strong encryption doesn't really matter if you're backing up your messages to the cloud — especially when the federal government gets a warrant to access your iCloud account. Mueller leaves Washington in despair. As far as I can tell, Manafort stands trial for buying an ostrich jacket. I was so disappointed when I discovered it was made of ostrich hide and not feathers. I expected Manafort dressed in a 1970s Superfly outfit. Instead it is just a leather jacket. Russian Collusion Investigation Has Orwellian Roots. Paul Manafort may or may not have violated tax and banking laws in 2010. Given the twisted and arcane nature of those laws, who knows? What we do know is that Manafort first was investigated for breaking those laws in that year by Robert Mueller's FBI. A discretionary decision was made not to prosecute. It wasn't a priority of the Obama Administration to indict consultants over how they reported income from foreign governments. If that were a priority, a lot of big shots in Washington would have gone down. [...] No, Manafort's crime is the same as Facebook's: he failed to measure the orthodoxy of his political client's message and, because of that, he now faces an inquisition. Manafort trial is complicated but Americans need to know this. All of the testimony at the Manafort trial has addressed events that occurred long before Manafort went to work for 2016 Trump campaign. The testimony has focused on Manafort's and Gates's activities as alleged "unregistered agents" representing the Ukrainian government starting in 2006. It would be absurd to argue that Manafort's other clients in the 12 years since then are somehow to blame for any criminal activity he may have engaged in — and prosecutors aren't even trying to point the finger at President Trump for these activities. Manafort's lawyers claim that Gates was the actual wrongdoer, and they subjected him to a punishing cross-examination. Robert Mueller requests Trump-related portion of Manafort's trial be kept secret. Special counsel Robert Mueller made an unusual request Thursday [8/9/2018] to keep a Trump campaign-related portion of Paul Manafort's trial confidential because it uncovered "substantive evidence" relating to the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The evidence was revealed during a private discussion between federal Virginia Judge T.S. Ellis and lawyers representing Manafort and his former associate Rick Gates, Mueller charged in a filing. Judge in Manafort case seals discussion of Rick Gates and Trump probe. A federal judge late Thursday [8/9/2018] granted a request from special counsel Robert Mueller's office to keep secret a portion of a private discussion they had at the bench with Paul Manafort's attorneys and the judge during the testimony of Rick Gates. The special counsel's office said in a court filing Thursday that the conference should be sealed because it would "reveal substantive evidence pertaining to an ongoing investigation." Manafort? Who
Cares? Other than seeing occasional headlines, I have spent less than one minute following the Paul Manafort
criminal trial. I imagine the overwhelming majority of Americans would say the same. Here's why: Cranky judge, flawed witness threaten Mueller's Manafort case. Special counsel Robert Mueller's team of prosecutors have spent several days building what many legal experts consider a slam-dunk case against President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. But it has been surprisingly hard going at times, and as they prepare to rest their case as early as Thursday [8/9/2018], they bear battle wounds that Manafort's lawyers are sure to exploit as they mount their defense. IRS agent: Manafort had $16M in unreported income. An IRS agent revealed that Paul Manafort had at least $16 million in unreported taxable business income over four years while testifying during the former Trump campaign chairman's trial for tax and bank fraud on Wednesday [8/8/2018]. IRS agent Michael Welch said in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, that Manafort received $15.5 million from Ukraine which he then used to pay for clothes, homes and landscaping between 2010 and 2014. Mueller's 'Star Witness' Rick Gates Falls Apart During Cross-Examination by Manafort Lawyers — Perjures Himself. Paul Manafort's legal team painted Rick Gates, a former business associate to Manafort as a liar who embezzled millions of dollars to fund his secret life with his mistress in a blistering cross-examination Tuesday [8/7/2018]. Rick Gates previously pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with Mueller; he was even referred to as the Special Counsel's 'star witness.' Drama grips final moments of Rick Gates' testimony in Manafort trial, as lawyer poses surprise question. Rick Gates has finished three days' worth of dramatic testimony in federal court against his former business partner, ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort — but not before defense lawyers caused a stir by pressing him for details on his past infidelity. A day earlier, Gates acknowledged having a single extramarital relationship in London while working for Manafort. But on Wednesday [8/8/2018], Manafort attorney Kevin Downing seemed to accuse Gates of having affairs with multiple individuals, asking Gates whether he disclosed four affairs to the special counsel's office. Manafort Trial Threatens the Constitution, Not Just Trump. One of the things that most concerned the U.S. Constitution's framers was the misuse of the criminal justice system by those in power to check their political foes. We have a Bill of Rights, in large part, to protect us against this most harmful abuse of arbitrary power. Ostensibly, we are protected from unreasonable searches and seizures, from delayed trials and unnecessary incarceration, from being forced to be witnesses against ourselves, and from "cruel and unusual punishments." Unfortunately, all the parchment safeguards in the world cannot guard a citizenry from a truly corrupt government, and a corrupt government is capable of securing its evil ends by enlisting persons of good faith who may find themselves unwittingly employed in miscreancy. Something very like this has occurred in the Robert Mueller prosecutorial investigation of Donald Trump for alleged collusion with Russians to influence the 2016 presidential election. Judge Ellis Brings Mueller's Prosecutor to Tears in Courtroom Showdown. It looks like Mueller's prosecutors can't take the heat. Rick Gates, Paul Manafort's former business associate took the witness stand Monday afternoon in the bank fraud and tax evasion case against Manafort. After jurors were dismissed, Judge T.S. Ellis scolded one of Mueller's prosecutors and a 10-minute courtroom spat ensued. Manafort prosecutors, Judge Ellis engage in 10-minute courtroom spat. After jurors were dismissed Monday [8/6/2018] in the Paul Manafort trial Monday, the federal judge overseeing the case and prosecutors trying the former Trump campaign chairman got into an extended verbal debate — lasting about 10 minutes — over the merits of the prosecution, the length of the case and even the eye contact of prosecutor Greg Andres. Mueller is a Terrorist: Raided Manafort for Documents [which had] Already [been] Turned Over. Remember this as they put Manafort deeper and deeper into the "Mueller" scope. Mueller raided Manafort(with guns drawn) for documents he already had. To the logical mind, that is terrorism. What makes Mueller any better than an ISIS thug? Isn't that how Islamic terrorists behave? More and more Americans are beginning to see special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation for what it really is: A desperate last-ditch effort to undermine POTUS Donald Trump's administration and eventually drive him from office, overturning the results of the 2016 election. They have no evidence of collusion between the Trump camp and Russia, so they go for the next best thing. They go after the people closest to Trump, hoping that one or two will turn over states evidence and stab Trump in the back. When the Mueller Gang Met Judge Ellis. Paul Manafort. Tony Podesta. Tad Devine. Greg Craig. Manafort worked for Trump. Tony Podesta is the brother of Hillary Clinton's campaign manager. Tad Devine was Bernie Sanders' chief strategist. Greg Craig was Obama's White House Counsel. All four men also, directly or indirectly, allegedly did work for the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine. And the ECFMU was allegedly a front for Yanukovich's Ukrainian pro-Russian faction. Manafort and the Podesta Group had failed to register as foreign agents. Tad Devine had worked for Manafort on the Ukraine project. Craig had written a report on Ukraine for one of Manafort's lobbying efforts. But only Manafort had the predawn raid, the solitary confinement and the high profile show trial. [...] Podesta, Devine and Craig are getting a pass because it's not really about Manafort. It's about Trump. Manafort case judge warns Mueller team they 'can't prove conspiracy' without star witness. The federal judge in the trial of ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort told Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team on Thursday [8/2/2018] they cannot prove a key part of their case unless prosecutors call Manafort's former business partner to the stand. U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III issued the warning after prosecutors suggested Wednesday that Rick Gates — who is cooperating with prosecutors and had been considered a potential star witness — might not be called to the stand after all. Referencing Gates, Ellis told prosecutors in court they "can't prove conspiracy without him." Judge Ellis Loses His Patience — Shouts at Mueller's Prosecutors — Then Ends Court Early. Judge T.S. Ellis lost his patience with Mueller's prosecutors Thursday afternoon and ended court early after the govt lawyers made the same mistake twice. It's amateur hour with Mueller's lawyers! Judge Ellis Interrupts Mueller Prosecutors During Opening Statement in Manafort Case: "It Isn't a Crime to Have Money". The bank fraud and tax evasion trial for President Trump's former campaign chair Paul Manafort began Tuesday morning [7/31/2018] in a federal court in Alexandria, VA. Mueller's prosecutors and Manafort's legal team both came out swinging with blistering opening statements. Paul Manafort's lawyer set the tone early Tuesday morning when he told CBS reporter, Paula Reid: No deal. Manafort attorney Kevin Downing tells me "No chance!" his client will cooperate with Special Counsel in order to avoid trial today. Manafort [was] Tried 8 Years Ago for [the] Same Crime and [the] Fed Cleared Him. [Scroll down] Again, speculating, but why wouldn't Mueller take a deal, if he's guilty? Perhaps because he's innocent? And I have felt for quite some time that somebody will begin asking for discovery, and that won't be good for anybody on the Left. Imagine going down that rabbit hole, where you find more emails, text message, and other damning evidence against the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, the FISA court, The Clinton Foundation, and even Barack Obama? Manafort Investigated But Not Charged for Crimes in 2014 Because Obama Cronies Implicated in Probe. A pair of Internet sleuths have uncovered information from the 2014 investigation of Paul Manafort that reportedly went nowhere because Manafort was tied to former President Obama's Chief Counsel, Greg Craig, and State Department envoy, Cliff Sloan. Techno Fog noted that the 2014 investigation of Paul Manafort went nowhere because it implicated Obama's former White House Counsel Greg Craig[.] Manafort's case proves 'the swamp' — not collusion — exists. The trial of onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has ignited a new series of tweets from the president about ending special counsel Robert Mueller's "witch hunt." But this trial and other actions by Mueller this week will be instrumental in bringing about one of Trump's key campaign promises: the one to "drain the swamp." As was the case with the indictments of Manafort, one keyword was missing from the opening arguments at the trial on Tuesday: "Trump." Everything discussed in the courtroom precedes Manafort's three months on the 2016 Trump campaign by two years. Judge Napolitano Doubles Down: Says Paul Manafort was Exonerated 8 Years Ago — May Call Rosenstein as First Witness. Judge Napolitano dropped a bomb Tuesday [7/31/2018] on FOX and Friends. The FOX News legal analyst told the audience that Paul Manafort was already exonerated eight years ago on these same charges and... Rod Rosenstein was the lawyer who exonerated him! Mueller team lectured by Judge in Manafort case. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutors were lectured by a federal judge on Wednesday for the language they've used in the courtroom and more, as the trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort entered its second day. U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III specifically told prosecutors to stop using the word "oligarch" to describe wealthy Ukrainians, whose dealings with Manafort are at the heart of the fraud charges he faces in northern Virginia federal court. Why Hasn't the Press Reported That Paul Manafort Was Exonerated 8 Years Ago? How many of you know that Paul Manafort was exonerated by federal investigators who investigated his financial and tax affairs eight years ago? Mueller's team slams Manafort's lavish lifestyle, defense points to ex-colleague Gates as fraud trial begins. Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's lavish lifestyle was front-and-center during opening arguments in his fraud trial Tuesday afternoon, as prosecutors said he lied to put his money ahead of the law, while defense attorneys — and even the presiding judge — reminded jurors that exorbitant wealth, in itself, is not a crime. Prosecutors also called their first witness in the case: former Bernie Sanders campaign adviser Tad Devine, who worked closely with Manafort on several elections in Ukraine, including the successful 2010 presidential campaign of since-deposed pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovych. Prosecutors say Manafort's wealth was fueled by lies to IRS and banks. President Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort went on trial Tuesday [7/31/2018] in federal court in Alexandria, Va., where prosecutors charged that his personal fortune was propped up by years of lies to tax authorities and banks. The first trial to arise out of the investigation run by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III got off to a fast start Tuesday, as a jury of six men and six women was picked — and opening statements delivered — in less than a day. The stakes are extremely high. For the 69-year-old Manafort, a conviction on the most serious charges could lead to an effective life prison sentence. For Mueller and his team probing Russian interference in the 2016 election, a courtroom loss could damage his credibility and amplify calls by Republicans for his investigation to be shut down. Mueller can't afford to lose the Manafort trial. The first trial of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russian probe presents multiple challenges to both the prosecution and defense. The pressure is enormous on both sides. Mueller's team cannot afford a loss in their very first trial. And a loss for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who also faces a second trial in September in Washington, DC, would make defending his second case almost a waste of time. FBI describes early-morning raid of Paul Manafort's condo. The FBI on Wednesday [8/1/2018] described the details of the early-morning raid on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's Alexandria condo on the second day of Manafort's trial. FBI special agent Matthew Mikuska, an 11-year veteran of the bureau, testified in court in Alexandria, Va., saying he was the seizing agent for the government's search last year. Mikuska told the jury agents knocked three times on Manafort's door, but used a key to gain access after receiving no answer. Once inside, agents saw Manafort. Manafort trial to focus on lavish lifestyle, not collusion. The trial of President Donald Trump's onetime campaign chairman will open this week with tales of lavish spending, secret shell companies and millions of dollars of Ukrainian money flowing through offshore bank accounts and into the political consultant's pocket. Another Narrative Busted: The Focus of Manafort's Upcoming Trial Will Make Liberals Very Sad. The first federal trial for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is set to start tomorrow in Washington D.C. Leftists are salivating over what the trial could reveal about the 2016 presidential election, alleged Russian collusion and Manafort's relationship with President Donald Trump. But according to a new report from the Associated Press, they're likely to be disappointed as the trial will focus on Manafort's business dealings and lavish lifestyle, not collusion. So What's Paul Manafort On Trial For Again? Paul Manafort's trial gets underway in Virginia tomorrow with jury selection being the first order of the day. It's been a long time coming and the public (or at least the majority of the media) are keen to find out what sort of answers may be in store for us. But the list of charges and the evidence being presented by the prosecution seems to be sorely lacking in one area. That's highlighted in the title of this Associated Press piece from the weekend: Manafort trial to focus on lavish lifestyle, not collusion. James Comey's notes and memos This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. The Inspector General's Report, released August 29, 2019: Senators: IG FISA Abuse Report Misled Public About Crossfire Hurricane. Last week's political trifecta — the Iowa caucus, the State of the Union, and President Trump's impeachment acquittal — temporarily starved other stories of oxygen. Among those was the news that the inspector general's report on FISA abuse was misleading and that redacted information contained in four footnotes contradicted sections of the lengthy expose on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson dropped that bombshell in a letter delivered to Attorney General William Barr that requested Barr declassify the information hidden in the redacted footnotes. While the declassified version of the Grassley-Johnson letter did not identify the four footnotes at issue, a detailed analysis of the IG report suggests the redacted information concerned Christopher Steele's sources and potentially the FBI's purported predication for the launch of Crossfire Hurricane. These conclusions come from a deep-dive into the IG report read in tandem with the Grassley-Johnson letter. Does the IG Report "Exonerate" James Comey? Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton says not at all. In the eyes of Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton, what is the significance of the Department of Justice Inspector General's report, or IG report, on former FBI Director James Comey? Does it exonerate Comey as the former FBI Director claims? What is the significance of Bruce Ohr's interview records, FBI 302's, with Christopher Steele? What else might be found in other Christopher Steele-related documents? [Video clip] Inspector General's Report Exposes Another 'Collusion' Myth. [Scroll down] Ever since the memo was leaked to the news media by a Comey pal more than two years ago, the American public has been warned how that brief discussion between Comey and Trump represented an egregious presidential power play: Trump, the story goes, was squeezing his top G-Man to stop looking into his campaign for conspiring with the Kremlin because everyone associated with Trump, we were told, was guilty. But that portrayal of events was never the truth. The conversation in February 2017 had nothing to do with the Russia investigation, [...] Inspector General's Report Exposes Another 'Collusion' Myth. The presidential skullduggery allegedly exposed by the Flynn memo is just one more myth that has been peddled by anti-Trump partisans to bolster a fabricated storyline that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton. The media will ignore the obvious truth about the memo — but just like every other example of media malpractice related to this scandal, no mea culpas will be offered. Democrats will repeat the falsehood on the campaign trail next year with no pushback from reporters. Republicans can try to push back but it's probably too late; the public has already been told what to believe. The Comey-Brennan Conspiracy to Violate Trump's Civil Rights. The Comey IG report is interesting for any number of reasons, the first of which is that the Justice Department decided not to prosecute Comey for his intentionally leaking one of his "private" memos about conversations with President Trump to a friend. He did so, as we've known for two years, specifically to have that friend leak it to the New York Times for publication. Comey intended those leaks to have precisely the effect they did: to cause the appointment of a special counsel. Robert Mueller's subsequent investigation into the ephemeral "Russia collusion" investigation failed in what Comey — and the rest of the anti-Trumpers in the Justice Department and the CIA — intended it to do. It didn't remove Trump from office in a "soft" coup. Second IG Report to come, and it's gonna come for James Comey! According to Fox News, the feds aren't done with Comey — there's a second IG report to come, it sounds like. [Video clip] That's coming from Mark Meadows, so take that for what it's worth. But it IS odd that they laid out all this bad stuff that Comey did, then denied to prosecute. The Inspector General Glosses Over Some Ugly Truths About The FBI. The Justice Department Office of the Inspector General's report released Aug. 29 clearly stated that James Comey violated and abused FBI policies in managing memos in which he supposedly documented confidential conversations with the president. This is a revelation that most of us have known for quite some time. However, Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz has yet again glossed over some major problems. It appears that the main reason Horowitz concludes former FBI Director James Comey only violated his FBI Employment Agreement and DOJ/FBI "policies" was because the documents he kept, disclosed, and leaked to improper parties were not considered truly classified. That apparently keeps them from being serious enough to prosecute. So, who made the decision that they were not classified? The answer would be outrageous if it were not virtually farcical. Yes, Comey did leak classified information. The new report from the Justice Department inspector general proves beyond any doubt that fired FBI Director James Comey leaked sensitive law enforcement material in the Trump-Russia investigation. Doing so set a "dangerous example" for the bureau's other employees, Inspector General Michael Horowitz wrote. Still, Comey's supporters have claimed exoneration on one front: that Comey did not leak classified information. Some reacted angrily when President Trump tweeted that Comey had done so. But Comey did, in fact, leak classified information. It's right there in the report. It wasn't much classified information, and it was perhaps not terribly important, and Justice Department officials concluded it was not worth prosecuting. But Comey leaked classified material. Coming Legal Attractions. Two matters are likely to reveal more of the machinations of the FBI and intelligence agencies in the past presidential election and since. First there's the Department of Justice's Inspector General's inquiries. The first inquiry resulted in a devastating account of former FBI Director James Comey's conduct. Many were disappointed that Attorney General William Barr chose not to indict him based on the record IG Michael Horowitz presented, but bear in mind, this inquiry did not cover what will be a larger report on the abuse of the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) in which it seems Comey played a significant role. While Comey, as is his self-deluded wont, claims the report vindicated him, it most certainly did not. Jim Jordan: James Comey Owes An Apology To Our Country. Ohio Republican Congressman Jim Jordan blasted fired FBI Director James Comey on Fox News Thursday night [8/29/2019], saying he will in no way apologize to Mr. Comey and in fact, it is the now-disgraced Comey who owes America an apology for the past two years. As Katie covered, the Department of Justice Inspector General released a blistering report Thursday morning "confirming fired FBI Director James Comey is a politically motivated liar and rampant leaker of official, confidential information. He broke all kinds of FBI rules, protocol and laws in his effort to take down President Trump and his administration through the launch of a Special Counsel investigation." Trump Was Always the Target of the Russia Investigation. Donald Trump was always the target. The point of the Russia investigation was to make a case against Donald Trump. Preferably, the case would drive him from office. At a minimum, it would render him unelectable by the 2020 stretch run. The kind of case was less important than the objective: criminal prosecution or impeachment. In accordance with the collusion narrative, the latter would mean trying to show that Trump was compromised by the Kremlin. That is the astonishing takeaway from Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report on former FBI director James Comey's handling of his memos. The Deep State Will Face Justice Soon! Right? [Scroll down] Then we have that pathetic excuse for a human being, James Comey, gloating over the I.G. report that issued a verbal slap on the wrist for his infractions. Comey: "And to all those who've spent two years talking about me 'going to jail' or being a 'liar and a leaker' — ask yourselves why you still trust people who gave you bad info for so long, including the president." But no worries: Comey will pay when the FISA abuse report comes out. Or not: Washington insiders are now foreshadowing immunity for the entire cabal, saying that, "sadly," these lawbreakers probably won't be prosecuted. That's not sad; it's terrifying. If we can't indict and prosecute these clowns who have conspired to overthrow our government, who have committed the most egregious political crime in history, then stick a fork in our Republic. We're done. But what can we do? Actually, this whole strung out Spygate nightmare is an exercise to ensure we do nothing. Washington isn't a swamp; it's a sewer, and the rats that inhabit it are never going to allow their comrades to be indicted. Jumpin' Jim Flash. Yesterday the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General released its long awaited report on certain elements of James Comey's misconduct as Director of the FBI. Contrary to his assurance to President Trump — an assurance that projected something of his essence — the report demonstrates that Comey is a weasel (and worse). He is also (again to borrow the words of his own denial to Trump) a sneak, a leaker, and a liar (and worse), but these are venial sins in the panoply of Comey's misconduct. There is no substitute for reading the report. New report details Comey plan to ambush Trump with Moscow sex allegation. A just-released Justice Department inspector general's report provides new details on a January 2017 plan by then-FBI Director James Comey, top bureau officials, and the nation's intelligence chiefs to spring a scandalous allegation on President-elect Trump, quickly record his reaction, use a prearranged secure videoconference to discuss the information, and fit it all into the FBI's ongoing (but unknown to Trump) "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation. The allegation came from the Steele dossier, the collection of unverified tales about Trump and Russia compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. The story was that in a Moscow hotel room in 2013, Trump had watched as prostitutes performed a kinky sex act — and Russian intelligence service cameras rolled. Trump says he should be 'given our stolen time back' after release of Comey report. President Trump suggested Friday that he and his supporters should be "given our stolen time back" in light of a Justice Department report that found former FBI director James B. Comey violated FBI policies regarding memos that helped spark the special counsel investigation. [...] "The disastrous IG Report on James Comey shows, in the strongest of terms, how unfairly I, and tens of millions of great people who support me, were treated," Trump said in a tweet, referring to the Justice Department's inspector general. "Our rights and liberties were illegally stripped away by this dishonest fool. We should be given our stolen time back?" Inspector general takes apart Comey's excuses for his actions. Of all the tall tales James Comey has told, none compare to the line he fed President Trump at their infamous January 2017 dinner. As recounted in the former Federal Bureau of Investigation director's memo about that evening, "I said I don't do sneaky things, I don't leak, I don't do weasel moves." The Justice Department's inspector general begs to differ. In a new report about Mr. Comey's handling of those memos, Michael Horowitz demonstrates that Mr. Comey in 2017 was consistently leaky and sneaky. The report refutes any claim that the then-director was justified in taking these actions. He repeatedly, and knowingly, broke the rules. IG Report: James Comey Passed Private Conversation with Trump to FBI Team Investigating Russia Collusion. The IG report relates that prior to the briefing, FBI members on Comey's team discussed the need to memorialize the exchanges between Comey and Trump during the private January 6, 2017 briefing in Trump Tower just in case Trump made statements relevant to the agency's Russia probe. In other words, they plotted to stealthily use statements Trump said to Comey in a private briefing to inform their Russia collusion investigation. The IG further relates that Comey went on to do just that. He had a laptop waiting for him in the car, where he immediately began memorializing the private talk. James Comey was the Bad Guy in the 'Russia Collusion' story. The Department of Justice Inspector General Report revealed what many of us suspected all along: James Comey was the Bad Guy in the 'Russia Collusion' story. He lied to the President, lied about lying to the President, leaked government information to cover up his lying, and lied to the public about his lying. Comey tried to set up the President soon after he took office and failed, and covered up the attempt. Comey is revealed to be a completely manipulative bureaucratic infighter who maneuvered the government into a two-year Executive Branch paralysis in the form of the Mueller investigation, while falsely proclaiming himself the only holy player in the saga. His defense when unmasked in the IG Report is to crow that he wasn't indicted. Horowitz's 'scathing' report about James Comey's behavior is worthless without indictments. [Scroll down] Comey clearly violated FBI policies, but if the memos were classified — and if they contained information discussed between him and the president of the United States, it was classified — why isn't he being prosecuted for it? No offense to Sen. Graham and the others, but Americans have watched with disgust as one Deep State elitist after another, beginning with crime boss Hillary Clinton, have gotten away with what amounts to a coup attempt to depose a duly elected president for more than two years. If anyone else, including, say, a line FBI agent, had done what James Comey did, they'd be wearing prison stripes by now. Same goes for Clinton's criminal mishandling of classified information. Reaction: 'I Wouldn't Say James Comey Is Out of the Woods'; 'This Is Just the Beginning'. Reaction came swiftly on Thursday, after the Justice Department inspector general released a report saying that former FBI Director James Comey failed to live up to his responsibility to protect sensitive information. And by using sensitive information to force the appointment of a special prosecutor, the OIG found that Comey "set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees — and the many thousands more former FBI employees — who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information." "I wouldn't say James Comey is out of the woods," Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said. "We're in the pregame show. This is just the beginning," Jay Sekulow, President Trump's attorney said. The Substance Within the Report Shows a Two-Tiered Justice System. [Scroll down] James Baker, Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe, James Rybicki and Lisa Page were determining what parts of James Comey's investigative notes needed to be classified. The corrupt FBI was in position to police itself. This is not a conflict of interest, it is better described as a profound conflict of self-interest. The information the 'small group' wanted to use to frame the target would be visible, not classified; however, any material that would outline the construct of their corruption in targeting the target would be hidden, classified. You can't make this stuff up folks. The "small group" WAS the sources and methods they were protecting. Everything needed to understand that level of corruption is outlined in the way the IG report discusses the handling of James Comey's investigative notes (ie. memos). AND the fact that James Comey kept them hidden, yes hidden. How do you solve a problem like James Comey? To begin solving the problem of former FBI director James Comey, who's been blasted by the Department of Justice in its Inspector General Report, start by never again hiring people who value themselves so loftily over the people they are charged with representing. In other words, never hire someone like him, who absolutely believed he was smarter than, better than, and more important than the people whose laws his agency was tasked with enforcing. DOJ Inspector General: Comey Set a Dangerous Example. Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report Thursday outlining a wide range of serious misconduct by former FBI Director James Comey. Concluding that "Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees ... who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information," the 83-page report implicitly vindicated President Trump's decision to fire the rogue FBI director in May 2017. The Office of the Inspector General also confirmed that Comey improperly leaked highly sensitive material to the media for the express purpose of pressuring the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate the 2016 presidential election. Comey Taunts Critics Following Release of IG Report, Takes Swipe at President Trump. Fired FBI Director James Comey taunted critics and took a swipe at President Trump immediately following the release of the Inspector General's report regarding Comey's handling of the Russia probe and leak of memos. The Justice Department declined to prosecute Comey, however the IG found multiple ethics and department guideline violations by Comey. Read DOJ watchdog's list of all the times ex-FBI boss broke the rules. Former FBI Director James Comey received heavy criticism from the Justice Department's inspector general in a blistering report released Thursday [8/29/2019] about his infamous memos documenting his discussions with President Trump. The report found that Comey violated bureau policies by drafting, leaking and retaining the memos. However, it noted that the Justice Department declined to prosecute Comey over the violations. For his part, Comey responded by insisting that he is not a "liar and a leaker," saying an apology from his critics "would be nice." James Comey himself This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. News and timely commentary about the Inspector General's report, released June 14, 2018: A Review of Various Actions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice in Advance of the 2016 Election. IG report available for download. The overlooked bombshell of the IG report. Before the report was released, we knew from Comey's July 2016 statement that Clinton's private emails included "seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received." We also knew that the FBI "also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail." Comey further declared, "We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account." And he speculated that, given how "extremely careless" Clinton had been, it was "possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal e-mail account." Well, it turns out, the FBI knew with certainty at the time that hostile actors had in fact gained access to classified information via Clinton's emails. The Horowitz IG Report. There are two smoking guns. First, Peter Strzok famously texted his illicit lover that "We won't let [Donald Trump's election] happen." The other is found at 7:36 in Senator John Kennedy's questioning of the Inspector General. "Most" of the investigative decisions were made in Loretta Lynch's Department of Justice, not in the FBI. Since that body refused to pay any attention to demands by Republican investigative committees, it's no surprise that the investigation gave her a pass. But how do you prove it? The Reporters Also Committed a Crime. It is a crime for reporters to pay for leaks. Reporters can use information volunteered by whistleblowers, but bribes are a different story. And it appears to be happening with some regularity. The recent Department of Justice Inspector General's report warns: "We identified instances where FBI employees improperly received benefits from reporters, including tickets to sporting events, golfing outings, drinks and meals, and admittance to nonpublic social events." The report finds that such enticements likely led agents to leak information. So far, the media hasn't acknowledged this possible criminal activity by reporters. The problem goes beyond ethical violations, and it has serious implications. If reporters can legally bribe government officials, who's to say that the reporters won't also collude with foreign governments? The Inspector General may be preparing us for the real #Spygate bombshells. [Scroll down] "I am upset at all of this," Horowitz said Tuesday. "It is precisely why it cast a cloud over the investigation, it undermines confidence in it. All of those impacts are very significant and very serious on an FBI investigation. That should never happen and it happened because of these text messages and because of what these employees were doing." But one reason Horowitz might have punted in his recent report is because he knows the real bombshells are yet to come: He is investigating the FISA warrant on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page; the cozy relationship between Justice and FBI officials and the media, including perks for scoops; ex-FBI Director James Comey's handling of classified information; and the potential doctoring of official documents. "We've got lots of investigations going on," Horowitz told Rep. James Jordan (R-Ohio). The overlooked bombshell of the IG report. [...] is the inspector general's confirmation that classified information contained in Clinton's emails was in fact compromised by foreign intelligence services, and that Clinton had recklessly emailed President Barack Obama using her unsecured personal email from the territory of a hostile foreign adversary. The Real Lesson of the Inspector General's Report. Michael Horowitz is the Department of Justice's Inspector General. He testified on June 18th before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his report concerning the Hillary Clinton national security breach investigation. [...] Horowitz testified that "most" of the investigative decisions in that investigation were made not by the FBI but by prosecutors within the Department of Justice. One might be tempted to conclude that much of the criticism of the FBI for its decisions in the aforesaid Clinton investigation would have to be discounted or re-examined. Perhaps. But that is not the most important conclusion. 'Extraordinary' Strzok removal shows FBI agents in crosshairs from IG probe. Peter Strzok's abrupt removal from his FBI office this week signaled that the Justice Department inspector general's work already is leading to consequences for bureau officials ensnared in various probes — with potentially more repercussions to come. Strzok, who worked on both the Clinton email and Russia probes, was escorted from the FBI on Tuesday, following a referral for further investigation from DOJ IG Michael Horowitz. The watchdog, as part of his Clinton case review, found that Strzok and four other FBI employees sent "hostile" anti-Trump messages on bureau devices. The FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility is expected to further investigate the findings against the five FBI employees. Bias and the beholder. The Justice Department's inspector general, Michael Horowitz, and FBI Director Christopher Wray claim the 500-plus-page report found no "documented" evidence that political bias at the FBI directly influenced the findings in the Clinton investigation or the Justice Department's decision not to prosecute the former secretary of state. People in "flyover country" are more likely to believe pigs can fly than they are to accept that political bias did not expose a clear intent to damage presidential candidate Donald Trump. Why does one need a document to prove bias? If the anti-Trump political beliefs of FBI employees, which are documented in text messages, did not influence their work then why is Director Wray ordering all of his employees to undergo training, including, reports CNN, "instruction 'on what went wrong so these mistakes will never be repeated.'"? Members of the media might also benefit from ethics training since the IG report found multiple incidents of journalists doing favors for FBI agents, presumably in return for information. The FBI Would Be Guilty Of Clear Bias If Its Trump Investigation Were A Racial Discrimination Lawsuit. Conservatives stood agape last week at the inspector general's refusal to state the obvious in his 568-page review of the FBI and Justice Department's handling of the Clinton probe: A pro-Hillary political bias led officials to let her off the hook. While Michael Horowitz's report highlighted numerous instances of anti-Trump and pro-Hillary bias, in true lawyerly fashion he focused in the conclusion on the lack of "documentary or testimonial evidence" showing that political prejudice "directly affected" the decisions made in the investigation. As a lawyer with a niche in employment law, this phrasing struck a chord of hilarity in me, because the methods of proving discriminatory intent are well-established, and such direct evidence of animus (or favoritism) is not required to show that an illegal motive drove an employment decision. What You Missed from Michael Horowitz's Testimony. Since the June 14 release of his 568-page report on the department's handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, [Michael] Horowitz has been criticized for concluding that the agency's decision to forego charges against Clinton was unrelated to the political views of those in charge. "We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations," Horowitz said, "including political bias, directly affected the specific investigative decisions we reviewed, or that the justifications offered for these decisions were pretextual." That finding seems to runs afoul of much of the report's content, which included a trove of text messages showing top FBI brass favored Hillary Clinton and despised Donald Trump. The FBI Deliberately Ignored 'Golden Emails,' Crucial Abedin Messages And More. The Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Hillary Clinton have a HUGE Weiner problem that is even bigger than we first realized. According to the recently released inspector general report, on September 28 and 29, 2016 the New York office of the FBI immediately reported to the Washington headquarters its discovery of, first, 141,000 and then 350,000 emails on the laptop of Anthony Weiner — also known as "Carlos Danger," a now-convicted sex offender. Mr. Weiner is the husband of Hillary Clinton's inseparable aide Huma Abedin. The Buried Lede of the Inspector General's Report. Buried in Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz's report on the Clinton email investigation lies a disturbing passage concerning information obtained by the FBI alleging that Attorney General Loretta Lynch attempted to put her thumb on the scales of justice to exonerate Hillary Clinton. "Comey said that he also was concerned about an issue specific to Lynch," Horowitz reports. "As discussed in more detail in the classified appendix to this report, Comey told the OIG that the FBI had obtained highly classified information in March 2016 that included allegations of partisan bias or attempts to impede the Midyear investigation by Lynch." What, specifically, did the "highly classified information" indicate? It is "highly classified," so we naturally remain in the dark. What justified making the information "highly classified"? Nuclear secrets? A list of U.S. spies abroad? War plans to invade Canada? We do not know. But in an age when the Justice Department assails words that merely embarrass with redacting markers, the words "highly classified" provoke curiosity rather than close questions. Comey's manner of dismissing the information does not inspire confidence. Clinton Email IG Report: Why Is The FBI Still Covering For Discredited Agents At The Heart Of The 'Investigation'? Two agents and an attorney at the heart of the FBI's Clinton email "investigation" expose flagrant political bias at the heart of that probe. So why won't the FBI release their names to the public? And given what these key players said, how did the inspector general come to conclude that the "investigation" was unbiased? Were changes made to water it down? The IG Report Hides the Truth. The five-hundred page IG report was released to Congress on June 12, 2018, and it barely scrapes the surface. It doesn't really reveal anything that the American people were not already aware had occurred. [...] And yet, in regards to investigative decisions by FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, the lead investigator on the Clinton email case and the Russia investigation, and Lisa Page, an FBI attorney, Inspector General Michael Horowitz incredibly offers us that there was "no evidence that the conclusions by the prosecutors were affected by bias or other improper considerations." IG Report Confirms: Our Republic Is under Existential Threat. [The OIG report] confirms, for many of us, our worst fear: segments of our federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies are a clear and present existential danger to our republic. [...] The report's assessment that officials were not affected by bias is perhaps the most laughable statement ever uttered in the annals of American political history. The I.G.'s report nakedly exposes a direct attack on Americans who have done nothing wrong, as well as an equally disturbing coup of our national hallmark institutions of stability. All the times Horowitz contradicted Wray — but nobody seemed to notice. Nine times during their joint testimony before a Senate committee on Monday, Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz contradicted FBI Director Christopher Wray ... but nobody appeared to notice. It's an instructive example of how false narratives and talking points in Washington are amplified by inaccurate media coverage. It's more reason you cannot necessarily believe what's reported and repeated, no matter how many are reporting and repeating it. [...] You don't have to take my word for it. But you'll have to read closely, because some of the statements include double-negatives. Clinton Emails: What the IG Report Refuses to Admit. Despite the sprawl of Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz's 568-page report on the Clinton-emails investigation, there is precious little discussion of the most important issue: The Justice Department and FBI's rationale for declining to prosecute Hillary Clinton. I believe this is intentional. The inspector general's message is: "Despite pervasive political bias and investigative irregularities, which I have comprehensively documented, rest assured that nothing too terrible happened here." That silver-lining version of this dark spectacle could not have survived a searching analysis of the decision not to indict. A Comedy of Corruption? Or a Bureaucratic Horror Show? After discussing some of the thousands of text messages between Peter Strzok — the top FBI honcho who ran both the pretend investigation into Hillary Clinton's mishandling of classified materials and the first phases of Trump-Russia fantasy — and his lover Lisa Page (then counsel to Andrew McCabe, who was the FBI's deputy director at the time), the report concludes that Strzok's decision to focus on the counterintelligence probe of the Trump campaign rather than the Clinton email criminal investigation "led us to conclude that we did not have confidence that Strzok's decision was free from bias." Right. A
Closer Look At Extreme FBI Bias Revealed In OIG Report. As we digest and unpack the DOJ Inspector General's
500-page report on the FBI's conduct during the Hillary Clinton email The IG Report On FBI's Clinton Probe Reveals This Saga May Be Just Getting Started. The media has focused almost exclusively on the conclusion of the Justice Department inspector general's report on the FBI's handling of the Clinton email probe, which found bias did not impact the probe, as well as the lack of any newly announced indictments or criminal referrals. The goal of course being to downplay the negative findings of the report. At the same time, the press gave, at most, passing mention to the statement Attorney General Jeff Sessions simultaneously released. But his statement and the findings of the report make one thing clear: This isn't over. Levin: US Attorney for DC Should Investigate FBI. On his nationally syndicated radio talk show Friday [6/15/2018], host Mark Levin called for United States Attorney of Washington, D.C. Jessie Liu to "investigate what took place at the FBI" as a result of the inspector general's report that was released on Thursday. "So what I'm saying is, Ms. Liu, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, should investigate what took place at the FBI," said Mark Levin. "She's got a lot of leads, a virtual — you know — zillion leads, and she's got a document that's 600 pages in length, almost, to help give her some guidance; impanel a grand jury, and now you can use your subpoena power." IG Hearing: Senator Lindsey Graham, John Kennedy and Ted Cruz Question Segments. As anticipated the majority of the Senate Judiciary hearing was a two-step. Most of the questions presented to Inspector General Horowitz and FBI Director Chris Wray did little to advance the understanding of the issues at hand. There was only one round of questions, several missing senators, and no senators for the duration. The hearing wrapped up early shortly after 5:00 pm. Here's the only three question segments that approached the central issues. We discover that former FBI Director James Comey is the subject of an ongoing investigation. We also discover there is a grand jury impaneled. Eight Lawmakers Demand IG Horowitz Unmask Names of Hidden FBI/DOJ Employees. Eight House Republicans have asked Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz for the specific names of FBI employees mentioned in last week's report on the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Horowitz Drops Bombshell: Hillary Clinton Was Not Formally Under FBI Investigation at Any Time in 2015-2016. On Tuesday [6/19/2018], Inspector General Michael Horowitz testified in a joint Congressional hearing to the House Oversight and House Judiciary panels about his review of the FBI's (mis)handling of the Clinton email investigation. The IG Report Was a Whitewash and Devastating All At Once. The IG report bait n' switch was just another example of our elite shrugging in the face of indisputable evidence of its own wrongdoing. The bombshells in the IG report could justly be classified as "thermonuclear," but remember the Comey conference back in July 2016? Its bombshells were thermonuclear too. Integrity Boy laid out an utterly devastating case against Felonia Milhous Von Pansuit, highlighting in damning detail her litany of crimes that would have consigned you, me, or anyone else not in the elite to a long tour in the stony lonesome. And then that Looming Doofus concluded his lengthy summation with, "But never mind." Inspector General's report shows FBI is bent and broken. Question: What's the difference between the corrupt old Boston FBI of Zip Connolly and H. Paul Rico, and the new modern FBI of James Comey, Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok? Answer: Nothing. Actually, there are a few differences. In Boston, all the corrupt agents wanted to do was frame a few innocent men and set up informants for hits by their underworld masters, as well as taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. The modern FBI agents were involved in an even more nefarious conspiracy — trying to first fix a presidential election, and then, after that backfired, trying to overthrow the duly elected president of the United States. 11 Quick Things To Know About The Inspector General's Report. [#1] Learn how to interpret an IG report. [...] Those who expected demands for justice in the face of widespread evidence of political bias and poor judgment by immature agents and executives were people unfamiliar with the purpose of IG reports. The IG is also a government bureaucrat producing government products that are supposed to be calm and boring. In the previous report that led to Andrew McCabe's firing as deputy director of the FBI and referral for criminal prosecution, his serial lying under oath was dryly phrased as "lack of candor." In this report detailing widespread problems riddled throughout the Clinton email probe, the language is similarly downplayed. That's particularly true in the executive summary, which attempts to downplay the actual details that fill the report with evidence of poor decision-making, extreme political bias, and problematic patterns of behavior. FBI IG Report: A Slap on the Wrist. Department of Justice Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz has released his 500 plus-page report, which purports to shine a light on the mishandling at top levels of the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation of the 2016 investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private e-mail server while she served as Secretary of State under former President Obama. Such mishandling included violations of Department of Justice standards and FBI protocols. The report from the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General ("OIG") criticized certain actions and decisions of former FBI Director James Comey, together with those of other senior FBI officials who were involved in the probe, including former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. Mr. McCabe is already the subject of an earlier criminal referral from the OIG for his alleged unauthorized leaks to the media and lying to federal investigators about his media contacts. Special FBI agent Peter Stzrok and Lisa Page, an attorney who has since left the FBI, were targeted in this report for their blatantly anti-Trump text messages. Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch was also criticized for exercising bad judgment in connection with her infamous tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton. A professional review of the IG report. The more I read about this, the more I admire IG Michael Horowitz. I have been involved in corporate governance and compliance for almost 20 years and I've never seen a better example of self-preservation than the OIG report. The IG Report: They're Guilty, but It's Okay. First we were told that Comey was a straight shooter whom we could trust. Then we were told the same about Mueller, Rosenstein, and now the IG. Yet in every case we've discovered that they are biased political actors who put the interests of the Deep State and the Democratic Party ahead of their sworn duty to uphold the law. It's time for all conservatives to acknowledge that there are few if any honest people at the top levels of the FBI or the DoJ. The Deep State and Tyranny. The issue of political bias, which the IG report scanted, has to be understood in the larger nature of the large-scale bureaucratic public institutions that comprise the Deep State. In other words, the structure and functioning of the institution itself creates a bias that selects progressive employees. The bias insidiously becomes a second nature of which they often are no more conscious than a fish is that it's wet. Justice Department IG is looking into James Comey leaks. The Justice Department's Office of Inspector General is looking into former FBI Director James Comey's decision to give his personal memos to a friend outside the government. "We received a referral on that from the FBI. We are handling that referral and we will issue a report when the matter is completed," Inspector General Michael Horowitz said during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The hearing came days after Horowitz's office released a near 600-page report on the FBI's handling of the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. Comey Under Investigation For Handling Of Classified Information. Former FBI director James Comey is under investigation for mishandling classified information, DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz revealed Monday [6/18/2018]. He is specifically under investigation for his handling of memos he wrote about interactions with President Trump while FBI director. Why the OIG Report Should Scare You. The Justice Department's tepid OIG report, with its risible assertion that there was no political bias in the FBI's Clinton email probe, suggests that it was written by people afraid to tell the unvarnished truth about the conduct of the federal government's police apparatus, an agency that openly defies congressional oversight and has participated in a vendetta against a sitting president. The FBI's leadership clearly hopes that the Democrats will win majorities in Congress and put a halt to the investigations into its multifarious abuses of power. The OIG is loath to face the ruthless reprisals that would inevitably follow such a disaster. Crime and Punishment. The Justice Department Inspector General's report on the investigation of Hillary Clinton's unsecured personal email server laid bare a widespread pattern of conduct that "cast a cloud" over the FBI. The report incites the inference that the Bureau is a severely corrupted organization, tainted and warped by unconstitutional ambitions to meddle in electoral matters. Although Inspector General Michael Horowitz asserted he lacked "documentary and testamentary evidence" to prove political bias ruled in making decisions of great political consequence, clearly he did not mean bias was not present. On what the report presented, it is almost certain that the FBI, at the deliberate direction of its leaders and senior Justice Department officials, intervened completely improperly in political matters. The inspector general led the country to the edge of the decision, and will presumably make a number of criminal referrals for possible indictments, as he did after his initial report. Insubordination and bias at FBI. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's 500-page report covers plenty, but it can be distilled to two words he uses to describe the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the 2016 election: insubordination and bias. Two terms that are chilling in connection with such a powerful agency. That won't be the message from Democrats and most of the press, who will focus on a few episodes they will claim cost Hillary Clinton an election. Watch for them to blame former FBI Director James Comey, whom the report faults for "a serious error of judgment," for having "concealed information" from superiors, and for "violation of or disregard for" departmental and bureau policies. Obama single-handedly ruined the FBI and the DOJ. Naturally, the political-media left that crowds out saner voices on television was quick as jackrabbits to announce that the FBI was vindicated by the I.G. report that was released on Thursday [6/14/2018]. [...] But one only has to scroll through the list of columns posted at RealClearPolitics on Friday to grasp the abyss between the left and right re: the report. The report contained an executive summary that said, "We found no documentary evidence of political bias." That means they did not find written confessions by all those Trump-hating higher-ups at the once-great law enforcement agency. But the five-hundred-page body of the report is chock-full of extreme political anti-Trump mendacity. Why the hundreds of texts between several like-minded agents that reek of profound bias against Trump are not documentary evidence is a mystery. [...] This I.G. report is only half, or maybe only a third of the whole story. IG Report: Peter Strzok Statements About Weiner/Abedin Laptop Conflict With FBI Claims About Weiner/Abedin Laptop. General David Petraeus was arrested for leaving his classified schedule on mistress Paula Broadwell's nightstand. Kristian Saucier was arrested for taking a classified photograph on a submarine. Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin had dozens of classified Clinton emails on a laptop and... There is a great deal of inconsistent application of law surrounding classified information. There is also a great deal of fatigue surrounding discussion of those inconsistent applications. Contradictions, inconsistency and obtuse justifications are as rampant in our midst as the political narratives shaping them. Perhaps that's by design. [Inexplicable ellipsis in original.] Mark Levin: "FBI interfered with the election worse than the Russians could have ever dreamed of doing!" Mark Levin gave a fantastic interview last night on Hannity where he gave his reaction to the IG report on the Hillary investigation. As you can judge from the title, Levin feels this report is a huge indictment against Comey, saying there was collusion, obstruction, and insubordination. And I love the line I used in the title, where Levin emphatically said the "FBI interfered with the election worse than the Russians could have ever dreamed!" [Video clip] IG Report: FBI Lawyer #1 Tashina Gauhar and The Huma/Weiner Laptop Issues. One of the information issues with the IG report is that it's written entirely from an insider's perspective. Therefore without an understanding of how divisions within Main Justice related to the discussed activity within FBI main DC offices it can be very confusing to understand. The 'insider narration' makes it difficult to see what happened with the Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner laptop; and how the Clinton emails were discovered. However, because the issue is so important the IG report spends three chapters on this time-frame between September 28th and October 29th, 2016; and ultimately the next day, Oct. 30th, when a search warrant was executed for the laptop content. IG Report: "We do not have confidence that Strzok's decision was free from bias". FBI Agent Peter Strzok walks like a biased duck, looks like a biased duck, sounds like a biased duck, has all the same characteristics of a biased duck, and took the exact action a biased duck would take; therefore "We do not have confidence" FBI Agent Peter Strzok is not a biased duck. IG Report: FBI Officials Accepted Bribes From Media. On Page Xii of the IG report the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General (DOJ-OIG) highlights numerous FBI officials who accepted bribes from multiple media outlets including: "tickets to sporting events", "golf outings", "drinks and meals" as well as exclusive invitations and admission to "nonpublic social events". Notes on the IG Report. No one can read the vicious, hateful, over-the-top partisan vitriol that FBI employees directed against Donald Trump — Strzok and Page are not the only ones quoted in the IG's report — and give any credence to that claim. These high-ranking FBI agents were politicized to the core and were determined to do anything they could to secure their candidate's election. Failing that, they plunged into the faux Russia election story in hopes of discrediting President Trump or even, as they explicitly discussed, bringing about his impeachment. The IG's report exposes a corrupt and politicized FBI and Department of Justice. And so far, we are seeing only half of the story, at most. No one has yet looked into the Democrats' "Russia" tale or any partisan corruption linked to Bob Mueller's farcical "investigation." Crime and Punishment. The Justice Department Inspector General's report on the investigation of Hillary Clinton's unsecured personal email server laid bare a widespread pattern of conduct that "cast a cloud" over the FBI. The report incites the inference that the Bureau is a severely corrupted organization, tainted and warped by unconstitutional ambitions to meddle in electoral matters. Although Inspector General Michael Horowitz asserted he lacked "documentary and testamentary evidence" to prove political bias ruled in making decisions of great political consequence, clearly he did not mean bias was not present. On what the report presented, it is almost certain that the FBI, at the deliberate direction of its leaders and senior Justice Department officials, intervened completely improperly in political matters. The inspector general led the country to the edge of the decision, and will presumably make a number of criminal referrals for possible indictments, as he did after his initial report. IG Report: FBI Agent Peter Strzok Sent Weiner Sealed Indictment To His Personal Email. One of the interesting aspects of the IG report is the documented use of personal email by participants within the FBI "small group" Mid-Year-Exam (MYE) team. One of those documented examples involves FBI Agent Peter Strzok downloading the content of the sealed Anthony Weiner Indictment, October 29, 2016, to his personal email address. Unauthorized extraction of a 'sealed SDNY indictment', and transmission to a non-secure system, is a felony. PBS's Mark Shields Sounds Silly: 'Very Sparse' Evidence of FBI Bias Against Trump. You could tell the PBS NewsHour didn't want to discuss the Inspector General's report on the FBI's egregious failure to live up to its own standards in the 2016 election cycle. Anchor Judy Woodruff started the Friday week-in-review segment with the North Korea summit, and then began the FBI analysis with a no-bias-found verdict: "Very tough on James Comey, saying he was insubordinate, some other tough criticism of him, but, ultimately, 500 pages concluded that the way the FBI handled it didn't demonstrate bias." Comey's FBI Was Protecting The Legitimacy Of The Presumed Clinton Presidency. In late October of 2016 James Comey knew Donald Trump's candidacy was as dead as a doornail. That must be distinctly understood or nothing wonderful can come from the story I am going to relate. Time soothes the edges of old emotions. We forget the shock of that election night. Almost two years now of articles and TV takes, even books, make Trump's election seem understandable, even sometimes inevitable. But that's not how it was then. When FBI director Comey and the FBI dropped their late October Anthony Weiner surprise, they did so fully confident that Hillary Clinton would win. What we now know for certain from the Department of Justice inspector general report that came out Thursday is that the FBI chose to disclose the Weiner email fiasco to protect a Clinton presidency, a foregone conclusion, from potential claims from Trump that the FBI had rigged the election. Decoding the Horowitz Report on 'bias'. We are in the midst of a spin battle over the inspector general's report issued yesterday [6/14/2018]. Because inspectors general cannot release their reports without giving those named within it a chance to contest it, and must be able to defend every single word of it, they must stick to facts and completely documentable conclusions. Inductive reasoning, looking at large patterns of facts and drawing conclusions, does not survive such a process. The result is a report that is written in a kind of code. Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal decodes the Horowitz Report on bias in a tweet thread on the subject. Her first tweet demolishes the "no bias" meme being pushed by Democrats, including the mainstream media. Why Did FBI Assign Same Agents to Clinton & Trump Cases? Why did the FBI assign the same agents who investigated Hillary Clinton's emails to look into allegations of Russian collusion with Donald Trump's campaign? Given the overlapping timetable of both cases, the decision appears not only peculiar but harmful to the efforts. The inspector general notes in his report the repeated excuse that the importance of the Russia investigation led to the crucial delay in the reopening of the Clinton email investigation after the discovery of former Secretary of State's missing messages on Anthony Weiner's laptop. The bureau assigning different agents and lawyers to each case, the IG suggests, likely would have prevented the one-month delay in looking into the laptop that came, crucially, just days prior to the 2016 election. Clinton Foundation Never Probed, Frivolous Suit Brought Against Trump. On the day the Office of the Inspector General released a report about egregious DoJ/FBI behavior, the New York Attorney General announced a $2.8 million lawsuit against the Trump's Charitable Foundation. Notice how the Feds and the NY AG work together? This is a civil suit and they want to shut down the charity. The fact is the Foundation raised 18.8 million dollars while giving 19.2 million to charity with virtually zero expenses. This is a frivolous suit meant to hurt the President and counteract the OIG report. Insubordination and Bias at FBI. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's 500-page report covers plenty, but it can be distilled to two words he uses to describe the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the 2016 election: insubordination and bias. Two terms that are chilling in connection with such a powerful agency. That won't be the message from Democrats and most of the press, who will focus on a few episodes they will claim cost Hillary Clinton an election. Watch for them to blame former FBI Director James Comey, whom the report faults for "a serious error of judgment," for having "concealed information" from superiors, and for "violation of or disregard for" departmental and bureau policies. Media fawning over Comey, McCabe looks silly after stinging IG report. For those journalists who have covered law enforcement for decades, there was some discomfort watching a doting news media bestow adoration earlier this year upon the FBI's disgraced top two former bosses. FBI Director James Comey, terminated for violating department guidelines and explicit instructions, was given the royal treatment when his memoir came out this spring. Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, fired for lying to his own federal investigators, was portrayed as a whistleblower akin to Mark Felt, another former top FBI official who exposed the very real Watergate scandal. [There is] No Obstruction If [a] Boss Cans [an] Insubordinate Subordinate. Now that Justice Department Inspector-General Michael Horowitz has released his nearly 600-page report on his investigation of FBI practices during the course of the Hillary Clinton email probe, one thing is more settled then ever[:] former FBI director James Comey had to be fired as fast as possible. The IG's findings could not have been more clear: Comey was consistently insubordinate. That is precisely the word used in the report: insubordinate. No company, no business, no organization can function effectively with highly placed but subordinate people working at odds with their superiors, their management, their bosses. Comey responds to IG report. Former FBI Director James Comey led the FBI into crisis, scandal and disgrace. Fired from the job by President Trump, he presented himself as a model of ethical leadership with a best-selling how-to book. The IG report released yesterday documents his failures, notes his duplicity, calls him out for his high handedness, and gives us his endless self-justification. In the tweet below responding to the IG report, we see that he is a man of many devices, one of which is a public relations strategy to ward off shame. He could write an authentic classic on the high art of political pretense. Sex, lies and betrayal at the FBI. If Jeff Sessions and Christopher Wray want to clean house at the FBI, they'll be well advised to pack a good lunch. Cleaning this house will be an all-day job. The agency under James B. Comey has been more corrupt than we thought. The long-awaited findings of the inspector general at the Justice Department were finally released Thursday, and it reveals clearly that officials high up in the food chain were out to protect Hillary Clinton by any means necessary. The FBI Hates Trump — and His Voters, Too. Several passages in the Justice Department's Inspector General report on the agency's handling of the Clinton email investigation illustrate the FBI's culture of contempt for Trump, before and after the election. Comments from key law enforcement officials — lawyers and investigators — about Trump were vile, demeaning, and childish. But their ridicule was not isolated to Trump. These public servants were unsparing in their contempt for the voters — the very people who fund their salaries and pensions. FBI Employee to FBI Attorney for Russia Investigation: 'YOU PROMISED' Trump Would Never Get Elected. The day after Donald Trump was elected president, an FBI employee engaged in an "instant message" conversation with an FBI attorney who had worked on the Clinton email investigation, then moved to the Russian meddling investigation, and would later become an attorney working with Special Counsel Robert Mueller on that investigation. Speaking of Trump's election, the FBI employee told the FBI lawyer: "You promised me this wouldn't happen. YOU PROMISED." Later, in the same instant messaging exchange, according to the inspector general's report released today, the FBI attorney responded: "I am just devastated. I can't wait until I can leave and just shut off the world for the next four days." Tying Hillary's Emails to the Russian 'Collusion' Probe. The 568-page report released Thursday by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz may help explain why the investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails and the probe of the Donald Trump campaign team's possible ties to Russia appear to bleed into each other. The IG report, titled "Review of Various Actions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice in Advance of the 2016 Election," details the FBI's investigation and eventual closure of the case regarding Clinton's use of a private, non-government email account, and her private server. The report devotes particular attention to former FBI director James Comey's July 5, 2016 statement exonerating Hillary Clinton from criminal wrongdoing in her handling of classified intelligence. IG report? I want indictments. The FBI is run by people who think they are above the law. They may be right. Missing from this document are the indictments. Jimmy the Weasel Comey should be arrested and charged with obstruction of justice, conspiracy, and sundry other crimes like the common criminal he is. Arrogant Andrew McCabe, Peter the Politician Strzok, Lisa Page, and a whole slew of other agents need to be arrested, jailed, and charged with every crime possible. This calls for a Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization prosecution because these boys and girls turned a federal agency into their private protection racket. We know this was going on for years because there is a casual, business-as-usual air to the way they conducted their crimes. The record shows this. FBI Employee: 'Trump's Supporters Are All Poor, Uneducated, Lazy POS'. The Justice Department's Office of Inspector General report on the FBI handling of the Clinton email investigation reveals a bureau staffer made remarks attacking the "Deplorables," the voters who elected Donald Trump. [...] When Justice Department investigators asked if the comments demonstrated a political bias, the attorney said, "personal political feelings or beliefs... in no way impacted" the staffer's work undertaken on either the Clinton email probe or the Russia investigation. With FBI's boiling hate for voters exposed, America dodged a bullet by electing Trump. One of the biggest takeaways from the Department of Justice's 500-page inspector general report is how deep the contempt for voters is among the Federal Bureau of Investigation's leadership elite. The text messages are incredible. [...] It's so bad that the I.G. report said these remarks, just oozing with contempt for the American public, led to an atmosphere that "has brought discredit to themselves, sowed doubt about the FBI's handling of the Midyear investigation, and impacted the reputation of the FBI." The IG's Report May Be Half-Baked. You've got to hand it to Michael Horowitz: The Justice Department inspector general's much-anticipated report on the Clinton-emails investigation may be half-baked, but if it is, it is the most comprehensive, meticulously detailed, carefully documented, thoughtfully reasoned epic in the history of half-bakery. Why say do I say the report "may be half-baked"? Why don't I just come out and declare, "The report is half-baked"? Well, I figure if I write this column in the IG's elusive style, we'll have the Rosetta Stone we need to decipher the report. Justice Leadership Is Not Coming Clean. Despite misleading headlines, the inspector general's report on the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails shows a powerful law enforcement agency hobbled by bias and dishonesty. The press has seized on the IG's statement that he "did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected the specific investigative decisions we reviewed." But that is simply Inspector Generalese for, "No one confessed or left a paper trail." Open Up the Horowitz Secret Appendix. Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report points to multiple irregularities in FBI chief James Comey's actions in the 2016 election campaign, sees no evidence of political bias, but never really gets to the bottom of why Mr. Comey played the role he did. Mr. Comey may have been worried that a Justice Department decision not to prosecute Mrs. Clinton would lack credibility, but it was in no sense his obligation to solve this problem. It simply was not the FBI chief's job to relieve the Obama administration of the need to sell its decision to the electorate. This is why we have elections. It's what political accountability is all about. This is where Russia enters in. It is highly absurd at this point to keep this information secret, as Mr. Horowitz does in a classified appendix. How political bias infected FBI Trump, Clinton probes. [Scroll down] Then there was FBI Attorney 2. His case is particularly newsworthy because Horowitz reported — it was not known before — that, like Strzok and Page, FBI Attorney 2 was removed from the Mueller investigation when the inspector general made Mueller aware of FBI Attorney 2's internal communications. "FBI Attorney 2 left the special counsel's investigation and returned to the FBI in late February 2018, shortly after the IG provided the special counsel with some of the instant messages discussed in this section," the report says. On Oct. 28, 2016, the day the FBI's then-director, James Comey, announced the reopening of the Clinton investigation, FBI Attorney 2 messaged four other FBI employees, saying, "I mean, I never really liked the Republic anyway" or similar messages. The IG Report Was a Whitewash and Devastating All At Once. [Christopher] Wray's ruined agency's best n' brightest conspired to undo the results of an election to ensure that the liberal politician who wouldn't derail their gravy train would take office, but hey, a couple hours of diversity classes will fix that right up. I know I feel much better knowing that these bureaucratic superstars are finally going to get some training to inform them that trying to use their power as federal law enforcement agents to swing an election to their preferred political party is wrong. Apparently, that was previously unclear. The Real Problem With the OIG Report. [Scroll down] The DOJ's long-standing and well-established practice is to make no public statement regarding the outcome of an investigation unless and until it results in criminal charges. But, in the Clinton "matter," it was decided that there had to be a public announcement of the investigative findings even though she was to be exonerated. Consequently, there wasn't enough time for the investigation to be thorough and complete. But, if the FBI and DOJ wanted to "avoid influencing the political process," then why have any public announcement of the investigation's findings? By its very nature, the announcement, regardless of the investigation's outcome, would necessarily impact the political process and affect the fortunes of Clinton and Donald Trump. As such, a public announcement would be intrinsically and inescapably a political act. IG Report: Disciplinary Action Recommended For Five FBI Agents — Oh, And Bureau Employees Got Free Stuff From Reporters. Well, the report from the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz is here. Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former FBI Director James Comey, and ex-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe were placed under the microscope for their activities during the 2016 election, namely the Hillary Clinton email probe and the investigation into the Clinton Foundation. Katie and Guy broke down the major nuggets of the report, notably how Mr. Comey went way outside the protocol during the Clinton email probe. The IG report also noted that the arguments for why the ex-FBI chief informed Congress on October 28, 2016, that the FBI would be essentially rebooting the email probe after new emails were found on Huma Abedin's laptop, Abedin is a top Clinton aide, were unpersuasive. Meet the Other Amorous FBI Staffers Who Texted About the Clinton Email Investigation. Criticism of James Comey is nothing new — it's one of the few things that both Republicans and Democrats can agree on. Which made the headline takeaway of the Department of Justice Inspector General's report — that Comey deviated from FBI norms — something less than a surprise. But the Comey story isn't even close to being the most interesting or instructive finding by the IG. Perhaps the most shocking information in the IG's report is the revelation that Lisa Page and Peter Strzok were not the only amorous agents with a habit of texting. There were also "Agent 1" and "Agent 5," who were involved in the Clinton investigation and, according to the IG's report "were in a relationship at the time and are now married." Their communications make for a searing indictment of the culture of the FBI and paint a portrait of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email practices as fiasco. Inspector General's Report: FBI May Have Covered up Weiner Laptop to Help Clinton. Democrats have long complained that then-FBI Director James Comey's announcement in late October 2016 that he was re-opening the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails cost them the presidential election. But the report of the Department of Justice Inspector General, released Thursday, shows that the FBI may actually have neglected an investigation into emails found on Anthony Weiner's laptop in an effort to stop Donald Trump from winning. Comey Broke From FBI Procedures in Clinton Probe, Watchdog Finds. Former FBI Director James Comey was "insubordinate" in handling the probe into Hillary Clinton, damaging the bureau and the Justice Department's image of impartiality even though he wasn't motivated by politics, the department's watchdog found. Although the report issued Thursday [6/14/2018] by Inspector General Michael Horowitz doesn't deal directly with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's inquiry into Russia meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and possible collusion with those around Donald Trump, the president and his Republican allies in Congress were primed to seize on it as evidence of poor judgment and anti-Trump bias within the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department. Texts reveal disgraced FBI agent told lover 'we'll stop' Trump. A top FBI agent involved in the investigation of Hillary Clinton's e-mails told a colleague in 2016 that "we'll stop" Donald Trump from becoming president, according to the Justice Department's inspector general. The explosive comment came during an exchange of text messages between agent Peter Strzok and his lover, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, in August 2016, IG Michael Horowitz's report revealed Thursday [6/14/2018]. [...] Despite the stunning anti-Trump comments, Horowitz said he found no evidence that the pair's political views carried over into their work on the investigations into Russian election meddling and Clinton's improper use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state. 'Viva Le Resistance': Mueller Team Attorney Sent Anti-Trump Texts. An FBI attorney who worked on the special counsel's Russia investigation until earlier this year sent anti-Trump text messages to a colleague, including one exclaiming: "Viva le Resistance." The attorney's comments are revealed in a Justice Department inspector general's report released on Thursday [6/14/2018]. The lawyer is not identified, but he worked on the Hillary Clinton email investigation and was the FBI's lead attorney on the investigation into Russian election interference. He was assigned to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation soon after it began in May 2017 and left in late February of this year after some of his private messages were shared with the special counsel. The report from Inspector General David Horowitz, December 9, 2019: Sara Carter: If Declassified, Elements of FISA Abuse Report Will "Turn the Whole Horowitz Report on its Head". On Monday night's "Hannity," investigative journalist Sara A. Carter said that two Republican U.S. senators have asked Attorney General William Barr to declassify certain information from the Justice Department inspector general's "FISA abuse" report released to the public on December 9. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz found numerous errors and omissions in the FBI's applications for surveillance warrants on former Trump campaign adviser Carter W. Page but no evidence of political motives in the launching of "Crossfire Hurricane," the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign. The origin of "Crossfire" is under criminal investigation by U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut John Durham. Durham is believed to be probing events which occurred earlier than July 31, 2016, the date the FBI has claimed it opened its probe into the campaign. The Swamp is un-lovely, dark and deep. Source Identified — IG FISA Report Identifies One Confidential Human Source Leading to Audit of FBI Activity. Throughout the 478-page IG report on FBI FISA misconduct there are several mentions of Confidential Human Sources (CHSs) who were either officially "tasked" or unofficially involved in the 2016 FBI investigation of the Trump campaign. The inspector general review of the CHS activity is fraught with examples of the FBI denying many of the numerous "non-tasked" sources were acting in an official capacity. The inspector general's office knowing the FBI were lacking candor is one thing; however, proving that is another matter entirely. The 'having to take them at their word' dynamic appears throughout the chapters on the use of Confidential Human Sources. IG Report Hints James Comey Was In On FBI's FISA Misconduct. When the Department of Justice inspector general released his report on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse, coverage focused on the top-line findings contained in the executive summary. Then the news cycle whizzed by, leaving many details discussed throughout the 480-page tome unexplored. One significant gap in media coverage concerns the potential complicity of former FBI Director James Comey in the FISA abuse — a possibility the IG report hints at in several spots. The first suggestion that something was amiss with Comey's conduct came early in Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report, when the IG's office spoke of the methodology underlying the FISA investigation. Gregg Jarrett: Barr's Fox News interview should have Brennan, Steele calling their attorneys. Several key players in the origins of the Russia investigation might want to contact their lawyers following Attorney General William Barr's appearance this week on Fox News, political analyst Gregg Jarrett suggested Thursday night on "Hannity." "I would have my criminal lawyers on speed dial," Jarrett told host Sean Hannity, "because [Barr] made it pretty much clear he is going after not just the intel agencies but private actors." Likely Barr targets, Jarrett said, include former CIA Director John Brennan, former journalist and Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and former British spy Christopher Steele. AG Bill Barr Full Interview Covering Horowitz Report, Durham Investigation and Impeachment. Attorney General Bill Barr had an extensive sit down interview with Fox News host Martha MacCallum on Wednesday, December 18th. The interview was broadcast this evening [12/19/2019]. [Video clip] The New American Stasi. [Scroll down] Last week, the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz revealed that we have a New American Stasi. As a Member of Congress, I had voted against the renewal of the Patriot Act, a main reason was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. I could not, and still cannot, fathom having a "secret" court that has the power to grant warrants to conduct surveillance, spying, against American citizens without their knowledge, or ability to defend themselves. That is a complete and utter violation of our Fourth Amendment rights, yet this is what happened. And last week, Mr. Horowitz confirmed my greatest concerns: Seventeen inaccuracies and omissions were made to this secret court in order to obtain warrants to conduct surveillance, spying, against American citizens. And yes, the entire Mueller special investigation which was enacted for one reason, but veered greatly off course, and certain political opposition have found themselves in sentenced to prison. This is how things happen when progressive socialists are in power. What perhaps started with every good intention of keeping us safe from Islamic jihadists and terrorist attacks is now being used against political opponents. IG report suggests FBI might cheat on all its FISA wiretap requests. Former FBI Director James Comey initially portrayed last week's damning report on the bureau's probe of Russiagate as a vindication. This week, Comey admitted that Inspector General Michael Horowitz discovered "real sloppiness," which is "concerning." That characterization does not begin to cover the problems described by Horowitz, which this week prompted a highly unusual public rebuke from the court that reviews secret warrant applications under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The FISA court called the FBI's conduct "antithetical to the heightened duty of candor" that applies in such cases. Comey may take comfort in the fact that Horowitz didn't find political bias. The rest of us can hardly be reassured by the implication that the FBI is inept rather than corrupt. Brit Hume: One of the wonders of modern media is its failure to see through Adam Schiff. Adam Schiff claimed over the weekend that he shouldn't be held accountable for his own previous efforts to discount the numerous errors in the FBI's FISA application on Carter Page. "I'm certainly willing to admit that the Inspector General found serious abuses of FISA that I was unaware of," Schiff told Fox News' Chris Wallace. He added, "Had I known of them, Chris, yes, I would have called out the FBI at the same time. But I think it's only fair to judge what we knew at the time, not what would be revealed two years later." As Ed wrote yesterday, Schiff's explanation for his failure to see what was presented in the Nunes memo is "nonsense on stilts." I wrote a comparison between the information contained in the Nunes memo and the conclusions from the Horowitz report here. Every major point of the memo was substantiated by Horowitz' report while Schiff's response memo was cut off at the knees. Rush Limbaugh Says 'IG Report has Totally Exposed Nadler as a Full-Fledged, 100 Percent Liar'. Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh just slammed Democrat Congressman Jerry Nadler for not showing up at the House Rules Committee hearing Tuesday, adding that the inspector general report has now "exposed" Nadler as a liar. "The IG report has totally exposed Nadler as a full-fledged, 100% liar," Limbaugh said on his program Tuesday [12/17/2019]. [...] Limbaugh said the Democrats on the Rules Committee are "continuing to lie through their teeth about the supposed misconduct of Donald Trump." Brennan admits 'there were mistakes made' in FISA applications, suggests FBI was 'overly aggressive'. Former CIA Director John Brennan, an outspoken critic of President Trump, acknowledged Tuesday that "there were mistakes made" in the highly controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) application process during the Russia investigation as reported by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Appearing on MSNBC, Brennan was asked by host Chris Hayes about "abuses" uncovered by Horowitz, who claimed he found 17 significant errors in the renewed FISA applications into former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, while Horowitz was a member of the Obama administration. Nunes letter to Schiff: 'As part of your rehabilitation, it's crucial that you admit you have a problem'. Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, is riding high following last week's release of the Justice Department Inspector General report on FBI abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In a letter Sunday [12/15/2019], Nunes told committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., that he's "in need of rehabilitation," given the report's findings, according to Fox News. Taking considerable heat in the media after voicing concerns about the FBI's reliance on the discredited Christopher Steele dossier funded by Hillary Clinton's campaign to obtain a FISA warrant to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, Nunes was vindicated by the IG report. Shifty Schiff Tries to Play Dumb: The IG Report Revealed Things We Had No Idea About Two Years Ago. For more than two years, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told us President Donald Trump has done something wrong. He didn't know exactly what but he just knew Trump was involved in some sort of wrong doing. First, it was Russia! Russia! Russia! Once Special Counsel Robert Mueller proved that the Trump campaign did not collude with Russia, he latched onto Trump's call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. And that's how we're currently at the impeachment fiasco that the Democrats are ramming through the House. What's interesting, however, is Schiff is suddenly changing his tune. During a Sunday morning interview [11/15/2019] with George Stephanopoulos, Schiff said that Inspector General Michael Horowitz "found things" that the American people didn't know about in 2017. IG Report Proves Adam Schiff Has Been Lying About Spygate Since The Beginning. On Friday, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee approved two articles of impeachment against President Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The committee vote sends the question to the full House, with a vote expected later this week. That fast timeline won't allow for much consideration of the question, however, forcing folks to rely on House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff's 300-page report detailing his committee's "impeachment inquiry." But following last week' release of the inspector general's report on FISA abuse that proved nearly every sentence wrong in Schiff's last high-profile report (his self-titled "Correcting the Record — The Russia Investigation"), Schiff's work product should be deemed worthless. Horowitz Report Exposes Soviet-Level Wrongdoing. The Democrats long have insisted that the Hillary Clinton-sponsored Steele dossier was not used to justify FBI spying on the 2016 Trump campaign as part of an investigation into alleged ties to the Russian government. The American people were told that the intelligence apparatus had legitimate concerns about potential collusion and that authorities took appropriate steps to investigate Donald Trump's associates. The evidence contained in the report, however, tells a very different story. Not only did the FBI agents trust the findings of the now-discredited dossier, but they also used it to file the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) application to wiretap the Trump presidential campaign. The Media Has Some Apologizing to Do After the IG Report. Thanks to the Department of Justice Inspector General's report, we now know for certain what has been, for those paying attention, fairly obvious. The Steele dossier played a central role in the genesis of the Russia hoax and was used to justify extensive spying on former naval officer and Annapolis graduate Carter Page. The top two leaders of the FBI were closely involved in this fiasco. Other powerful people knew what was happening and lied to cover it up. That all was confirmed by the IG report. The report was a disaster for the credibility of top leaders in Barack Obama's FBI, and it's also a big problem for the American news media. Schiff and Complicit Media Are Due For a Reckoning After IG Report Exposed Their Lies. Now that the inspector general report on FISA abuse has vindicated the work of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and thoroughly debunked the fraudulent conspiracy theories and smears of the current chairman Adam Schiff, many conservatives are crying out for retribution. At the very least, Schiff should face an ethics complaint for lying in his memo, American Commitment President Phil Kerpen says. Trapped by the Ghosts of Corrupt Administrations Past. It's little wonder sane people have taken the Left's messaging strategy regarding impeachment and the Justice Department inspector general's new report as mere political inanity and mendacity. Government officials, past and present, who fear potential indictment for abuse of power for personal and partisan gain, their legal "experts" at Lawfare, their collusion media cohorts, and social media's rabid pack of regressive mouth-breathers who do little more than parrot them are not advancing a typical political argument. They are proffering a preemptive legal defense. For the Left, preparing briefs for a prospective court of law rather than making good faith arguments in the court of public opinion is a necessary gambit, due to U.S. Attorney John Durham's probe into the Russia-gate lie. What the IG Report Missed, and Where to Find It. The I.G. Report is not truthful in its description of the reasons behind opening the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. This might be not Horowitz's fault — his main sources were the Spygate perpetrators themselves. They were familiar with investigative techniques and thus coordinated their testimonies, inclusive of media leaks, accordingly. There is only one other relevant factor mentioned in the I.G. report regarding the opening the Crossfire Hurricane investigation: the "cyber-intrusion investigation" of the DNC leaks and alleged hacks. These two separate incidents were incorrectly mixed and attributed to the Russian government. But the report doesn't disclose when this cyber-intrusion investigation started or how it was predicated. [...] The I.G. Report mentions neither CrowdStrike nor any of its officers. For comparison, FFG is mentioned 144 times, and even Fusion GPS is mentioned 138 times, but CrowdStrike is completely missing. The Inspector General's Report. The conduct of former deputy attorneys general Sally Yates and Rod Rosenstein "were inconsistent with or undercut the assertions contained in the FISA applications" (to conduct surveillance on Trump-campaign helper Carter Page). They contained "inaccurate information," i.e. the applications were fraudulent. Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous Steele Dossier, a pastiche of defamatory fabrications that was paid for by the Clinton campaign and was the principal basis of the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) applications, thought he was answerable to paying clients (the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, through a law firm and the dirty-tricks operation Fusion GPS), while the FBI thought he was answerable to the Bureau, despite having closed out Steele for cause for assisting Fusion GPS in getting his false allegations into the media. Yet he continued to feed information to the FBI through the wife of senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr; she was contracted to Fusion GPS. Steele met 13 times with Mrs. Ohr after Steele's termination by the FBI, and his information was fed to the FBI. Steele continued to supply information to the FBI that director James Comey and deputy director Andrew McCabe wanted to include in the Intelligence Community Assessment of these matters (at least that outrage was not approved, but their effort incites intense curiosity about Horowitz's imputation of motives). "Ohr committed consequential errors in judgment" and a (prolonged) "lapse of judgment," Horowitz writes. Obama Wanted To Know Everything His Trump Spies Were Doing, And It Looks Like He Did. When it comes to the unlawful surveillance on Donald Trump's presidential campaign, the most important question is, what did President Obama know and when did he know it? If we are to believe the testimony in the Justice Department inspector general's report on FISA abuse, Obama didn't know anything about the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. Neither did his attorney general, her deputy, or anyone in the White House. At least not that they can recall — an expression used over 200 times in the report. Yet against this we have the Sept. 2, 2016, text message from Lisa Page to her paramour Peter Strzok saying "POTUS wants to know everything we are doing." True to form, the IG report goes to great lengths to argue that "knowing everything" in fact meant knowing nothing at all. WaPo Admits: Republicans' Famous Memo On FISA Abuse Blasted By Dems Ended Up Getting It Mostly Right. Now that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has finally released his much-anticipated report on alleged misconduct by the FBI during the 2016 election, two famous memos — one released by Republican Rep. Devin Nunes while he was House Intelligence Committee chairman, and Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who has since taken over the position — have come under renewed scrutiny. The memos presented dueling versions of how the FBI began to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in an effort to investigate alleged "collusion" with Russia. So who had it right? A fact-checker for The Washington Post has been forced to admit that Nunes got a "fair amount" right — in fact, his version of events aligned far more closely with what Horowitz found than the Democrats' rebuttal. IG report shows Russia hoax [is/was] a coup attempt. Inspector General Michael Horowitz finally damned the FBI during his testimony Wednesday when he said he would be "skeptical" that there was anything accidental in the egregious catalog of errors the bureau committed in its spying operation on Donald Trump's presidential campaign. It took five hours of questioning about the FBI's motivations, but Horowitz, prudent and impartial as he is, finally delivered the money shot. Asked by Republican Sen. Mike Crapo if the 17 "significant errors or omissions" he found in the FBI's surveillance operation could possibly be "accidental," Horowitz said: "I would be skeptical." This Isn't The First Time The IG Denied Flagrant Bias At The FBI. The IG said that he couldn't state definitively that political bias motivated officials at the FBI to launch and then sustain an investigation against the Trump campaign based on the Clinton-campaign funded and thoroughly discredited Steele Dossier. [...] First, what the IG report actually said was that it couldn't find "documentary or testimonial evidence" that anti-Trump animus got the investigation going in the first place, saying it was "a discretionary judgment call left to the FBI." Basically, then, the IG is saying there was no memo saying flat out that Trump-hating FBI officials were taking on this investigation to sabotage the Trump candidacy and presidency, and no one would openly admit bias to the IG's investigators. However, even the claim that the investigation's launch was legitimate and free of bias is itself being challenged by U.S. Attorney John Durham.
Graham alleges 'massive criminal conspiracy' in FBI's Russia probe in blistering hearing statement. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham accused the FBI officials who investigated the Trump campaign's ties to Russia of a "massive criminal conspiracy" in a fiery opening statement Wednesday for a hearing where the Justice Department's top watchdog testified. In a freewheeling speech to kick off the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on FBI abuses, the committee chairman said federal investigators made more than a few missteps — and took the law into their own hands. "What has been described as a few irregularities becomes a massive criminal conspiracy over time to defraud the FISA court, to illegally surveil an American citizen and keep an operation open against a sitting president of the United States — violating every norm known to the rule of law," Graham said. IG Horowitz hearing exposes deliberate FBI misconduct in investigating Trump campaign. When the FBI discovered that the anti-Trump Steele dossier was garbage, the bureau concealed that vital evidence. Instead of promptly terminating its surveillance of Donald Trump's former campaign adviser Carter Page, the FBI persisted in its quest to prove a Trump-Russia "collusion" conspiracy that officials knew was unsupported by credible evidence. This was the most significant result of Wednesday's Senate Judiciary Committee questioning of Michael Horowitz, the inspector general (IG) at the Department of Justice, in the aftermath of his damning 476-page report on the FBI investigation of the Trump campaign that was released this week. Lindsey Graham rips into media coverage of IG report: 'How do you get a headline like that?'. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, railed against the media's takeaways from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's recently released Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) report. In a freewheeling speech Wednesday to kick off the committee's hearing on FBI abuses, Graham said that Crossfire Hurricane — a covert counterintelligence investigation by the FBI into suspected coordination between President Trump's 2016 campaign and the Russian government's meddling in the election — was "probably the best name ever given to an investigation in the history of investigations" because, he exclaimed, "that's what we wound up with: a crossfire and a hurricane." Rep. Devin Nunes on Horowitz FISA abuse report: 'I felt more than vindicated'. House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said Wednesday that he felt "more than vindicated" after the release of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report Monday and its findings regarding the Russia investigation. "I think I felt more than vindicated because actually I give Horowitz a lot of credit because they were actually able to find things that we didn't know," Nunes said on on "Tucker Carlson Tonight." "Like we didn't know that they had actually found, talked to [Christopher] Steele's Russian sources. And I think that's a critical key here because now you have to bring into question everything that happened with [former Special Counsel Robert] Mueller." Sen. Hawley: The 'Collusion Was Between the DNC and the FBI'. While questioning Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Wednesday about the FBI's malfeasance in its spying on the 2016 Trump campaign, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said there was "collusion" in that presidential election, not with Russia but between the FBI and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The report by Horowitz confirmed that the DNC paid for the salacious "dossier," compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele, that supposedly showed Trump had been compromised by the Russians. The dossier was not factual and had been dismissed by the CIA as "internet rumor." The Truth about the Horowitz Report. [Scroll down] The key to the IG report was not whether it explicitly said there was or wasn't reason to open the four investigations. The really important part was the 17 significant errors or omissions in the Carter Page FISA applications and the many additional errors contained in the Woods Procedures (a procedure requiring the vetting of every fact submitted to a FISA court for permission to spy on an American.) The IG report found that many significant facts were withheld from the court and others were altered. It is a damning assessment of the veracity of the FBI and the fundamental basis of the entire investigation. It is also a felony crime. Of the 17 major errors found in the Page FISA application information, all the errors favored Hillary Clinton and the Clinton campaign. This is incalculably beyond coincidence. It is facial political bias. The many errors and omissions were never satisfactorily explained to the Office of Investigations. The report stated that it appeared agents were substituting their own judgements in place of the OI judgements. If this isn't investigatory bias, what is? Misfired 'Hurricane': Comey's team abused Carter Page and the FBI. The report by IG Michael Horowitz is one long expose of a confluence of actors at the top of the FBI who, by their own words, despised Donald Trump and came together to open and run an investigation into his 2016 presidential campaign, falsifying documents, withholding evidence and using a confidential source who had stated clearly that his goal was to prevent a Trump presidency. Despite these flashing lights, the IG essentially stated that since no one admitted to being motivated by their personal biases, he could not reach that conclusion. Thanks for that, but most Americans unencumbered by a law degree can detect the obvious without a lot of effort. Ironically, the devastating decisions and abuses that the report goes on to enumerate are only explained with any kind of logic by the swift current of personal animus gripping the main protagonists then at the top of the FBI. 'Aghast' to learn how little the Obama-era AG was involved in FBI Trump probe: fmr independent counsel. Former Whitewater Independent Counsel Robert Ray said he was "aghast to learn how little involved the [Obama administration] attorney general and the deputy attorney general of the United States" were in the FBI investigation into President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Ray said that is the most stunning revelation from the Justice Department Inspector General's review of FBI conduct at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign. "I think Michael Horowitz was surprised to learn," said Ray on Fox Nation's "Deep Dive" on Tuesday [12/10/2019], "and I cannot believe that there is an investigation that would take you inside a presidential campaign and four people who were targeted within that campaign and that doesn't require some kind of supervisory review and initiation beyond simply the inner-reaches of the FBI." Democrat Smears on Nunes's FISA Abuse Memo Proved False by Inspector General Report. Democrats last year smeared Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) when he issued a memo with findings that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act process when it obtained surveillance warrants on Carter Page, a member of the Trump campaign, in 2016. However, a report released Monday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz [...] vindicated Nunes's memo and proved Democrats' smears and assertions were false. Nunes's memo included the findings that 1) "material and relevant information was omitted" in applications for FISA warrants; 2) the FBI inaccurately stated in their FISA warrant applications that ex-British spy Christopher Steele was not a source for a Yahoo News report used in the applications; 3) Steele maintained contact with the FBI even after being fired as a source; 4) the FBI did not corroborate the Steele dossier at the time it was included in the applications; and 5) the FISA applications for Page mentioned former campaign aide George Papadopoulos, even though there was no conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos. The DOJ IG's report confirmed every finding in Nunes's memo. Bruce Swartz, Textbook Swamp Dweller. The Inspector General's Report from the Department of Justice (DOJ) features a heretofore unheralded costar by the name of Bruce Swartz, the assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division. Swartz was also the supervisor of the feckless Bruce Ohr, husband of Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr and frequent breakfast buddy of Christopher Steele of Steele dossier fame. Unreported by Inspector General Michael Horowitz, however, was Swartz's starring role in another DoJ drama some 15 years earlier. Given the scant media attention the case received in 2004-2005, it is possible Horowitz did not even know about Swartz's yeoman effort to save Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger from a lengthy sojourn in a federal Supermax. Horowitz Goes Full Comey. Like disgraced former FBI director James Comey before him exonerating Hillary Clinton for her crimes, DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz presents us with a documented list of crimes, fraud, and deception in the FISA warrant application process by the FBI but then says never mind — these are bureaucratic mistakes made without bias and without intent. There still was sufficient predicate, says he, for starting an investigation and surveillance of Team Trump, even as Horowitz admits that the first FISA warrant, the one authorizing surveilling Carter Page, was riddled with errors and omissions of key exculpatory evidence. It was the first of four frauds committed on the FISA court, a felony. Kimberley Strassel lays out 'key findings' in IG report: A 'triumph' for Nunes, an 'excoriation' of Schiff. The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel believes Rep. Adam Schiff owes the country an "enormous apology." She spoke to "Fox & Friends" hosts about the release of the anticipated Justice Department inspector general report, noting that the contents spell "triumph" for Rep. Devin Nunes and trouble for his Democrat colleague, Schiff. Ray was 'Aghast' to learn extent of Obama AG's involvement in FBI Trump probe: Fmr independent counsel. Former Whitewater Independent Counsel Robert Ray said he was "aghast to learn how little involved the [Obama administration] attorney general and the deputy attorney general of the United States" were in the FBI investigation into President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Ray said that is the most stunning revelation from the Justice Department Inspector General's review of FBI conduct at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign. "I think Michael Horowitz was surprised to learn," said Ray on Fox Nation's "Deep Dive" on Tuesday, "and I cannot believe that there is an investigation that would take you inside a presidential campaign and four people who were targeted within that campaign and that doesn't require some kind of supervisory review and initiation beyond simply the inner-reaches of the FBI." IG
Report Confirms Schiff FISA Memo Media Praised Was Riddled With Lies. The memo from the Republicans on the
House Intelligence Committee reported: Attorney General William Barr says FBI may have acted in 'bad faith'. Questions about the FBI's motives in targeting President Trump's 2016 campaign are mounting despite a Justice Department inspector general report that could not pin down evidence of bias. Attorney General William Barr on Tuesday [12/10/2019] said Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz did not push hard enough for answers to why the FBI made a slew of embarrassing errors, omissions and inaccuracies in its Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) application to wiretap Trump campaign aide Carter Page. If not a get-Trump mentality at the FBI, he asked, then what was it? Horowitz offers soundbites to Dems, facts to Republicans. It would be a great understatement to say that Michael Horowitz, the Department of Justice Inspector General, doesn't leap to conclusions. In fact, he does everything possible to ignore reasonable conclusions from the evidence he found and emphasizes the evidence that he didn't find justifying his lack of a conclusion. His latest report on the handling of the FISA warrants used to spy in the Trump campaign states: ["]...we did not conclude that the decision [to pursue an investigation of the Trump campaign] was based on improper considerations in the absence of documentary or testimonial evidence to the contrary.["] In other words, because nobody outright testified or wrote that they were launching Crossfire Hurricane out of hatred for President Trump, Horowitz will not draw that conclusion, even with all the Trump hatred evident in the text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Just how bad was the FBI's Russia FISA? 51 violations and 9 false statements. To understand just how shoddy the FBI's work was in securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant targeting the Trump campaign, you only need to read an obscure attachment to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report. Appendix 1 identifies the total violations by the FBI of the so-called Woods Procedures, the process by which the bureau verifies information and assures the FISA court its evidence is true. The Appendix identifies a total of 51 Woods procedure violations from the FISA application the FBI submitted to the court authorizing surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page starting in October 2016. A whopping nine of those violations fell into the category called: "Supporting document shows that the factual assertion is inaccurate." Nation's Top Cop Punches Coup Attempt Against POTUS Trump In The Face With Scathing Rebuke. It's a quick uppercut to the jaw of the Deep State delivered via Attorney General William Barr in the form of a brutally powerful statement following today's release of the IG report. AG Barr makes clear he has the Deep State in his sights and he appears fully prepared to take this to the finish line. Horowitz report is [bad] for the FBI and unsettling for the rest of us. The analysis of the report by Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz greatly depends, as is often the case, on which cable news channel you watch. Indeed, many people might be excused for concluding that Horowitz spent 476 pages to primarily conclude one thing, which is that the Justice Department acted within its guidelines in starting its investigation into the 2016 campaign of President Trump. Horowitz did say that the original decision to investigate was within the discretionary standard of the Justice Department. That standard for the predication of an investigation is low, simply requiring "articulable facts." He said that, since this is a low discretionary standard, he cannot say it was inappropriate to start. United States Attorney John Durham, who is heading the parallel investigation at the Justice Department, took the usual step of issuing a statement that he did not believe the evidence supported that conclusion at the beginning of the investigation. IG report lays out compelling evidence FBI misled FISA court in Russia case, sources say. The Justice Department inspector general's report into the Russia collusion investigation lays out incontrovertible evidence that the FBI misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court through false information and omissions, according to sources familiar with its findings. The evidence that the judges were misled is so sweeping that it could provide grounds, if Attorney General William Barr chooses, to withdraw the FBI's application for the surveillance warrants that began in October 2016 to target ex-Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, the sources added. Such a move, while mostly legally symbolic since the probe is long since closed, would still amount to a resounding rebuke to an FBI probe that the bureau, Democrats and their media allies relentlessly defended. DOJ inspector general finds 17 'significant errors or omissions' in Carter Page FISA applications. The Justice Department watchdog excoriated the FBI for relying upon British ex-spy Christopher Steele's dossier in obtaining Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants to monitor onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who released a report on Monday showing his findings regarding allegations of surveillance abuses, also found the FISA process was significantly flawed and marred by serious mistakes and missteps, but determined that the initiation of the Trump-Russia investigation itself crossed the low threshold to be properly predicated and was not influenced by political bias as some of President Trump's allies have alleged. DOJ IG: 'At Least 17 Significant Errors or Omissions in the Carter Page FISA' Application. The U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) audit on the origins of the Russiam collision hoax released Monday by the inspector general (IG) found "at least 17 significant errors and omissions" in the Carter Page federal surveillance application that enabled the investigation into the Donald Trump's presidential campaign in 2016. DOJ IG Michael Horowitz's report indicated the agents in charge of dealing with approving FISA surveillance, particularly the Carter Page one approved by FBI Director James Comey, "did not give appropriate attention or treatment to the facts that cut against probable cause, or reassess the information supporting probable cause as the investigation progressed." IG Report Proves Democrats Were Wrong, and Nunes Right, About FISA Warrant. The Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General (IG)'s report Monday on the FBI's use of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants found that the agency misled the FISA court, though not due to political bias. It also found that the decision to initiate an investigation into Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign was adequately founded — although Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham disagree. The Reason for Conflict Between Horowitz and Durham is Crystal Clear on Page 2. What inspector general Horowitz outlines in that key section is that: (A) he has reviewed everything, and talked to everyone (current and former) within the FBI; and (B) the ONLY evidence they FBI cited for the opening of Crossfire Hurricane is the singular conversation between George Papadopoulos and Australian Ambassador Alexander Downer and/or Downer's asst. Erika Thompson. That's it. Nothing else. There is no other predicate evidence from the FBI investigative unit other than a singular conversation between Alexander Downer/Erika Thompson and George Papadopoulos. All eyes on Durham after rebuke of IG Horowitz's findings. In the hours after U.S. Attorney John Durham announced Monday that he did not "agree" with key findings by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz, speculation swirled over what Durham has uncovered in his ongoing review into potential surveillance abuses against President Trump's team. Durham's inquiry has had a broader scope than Horowitz's, including a focus on foreign actors as well as the CIA, while Horowitz concentrated his attention on the DOJ and FBI. Additionally, Durham's criminal review has had additional investigative resources not available to Horowitz. Ted Cruz: Horowitz report shows FBI was 'utterly negligent' at best, 'complicit' in abuse of power at worst. Senate Judiciary Committee member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called the Justice Department inspector general's report both "chilling and encouraging" in an interview Monday [12/9/2019] on "Hannity." "It is stunning the abuse of power that we saw in the Obama administration and sadly it continued over in the deep state for the first couple of years of the Trump administration," Cruz told host Sean Hannity, [...] "The very best interpretation of the Horowitz inspector general report is that the FBI and Department of Justice were manifestly incompetent," he said. "The IG report outlines 17 factual misstatements that they made to the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveiilance {sic}] court and that they were utterly negligent in ordering the surveillance [and] spying of a presidential nominee and of a sitting president." Justice Dep't watchdog finds 2016 launch of FBI probe of Trump advisers was legitimate - source. The U.S. Justice Department's internal watchdog said it found numerous errors but no evidence of political bias by the FBI when it opened an investigation into contacts between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia in 2016. The report by Inspector General Michael Horowitz was likely to give ammunition to both Trump's supporters and his Democratic critics in the ongoing debate about the legitimacy of an investigation that shadowed the first two years of his presidency. Horowitz found that the FBI had a legal "authorized purpose" to ask for court approval to begin surveillance of Carter Page, a Trump campaign adviser. But Horowitz also found a total of 17 "basic and fundamental" errors and omissions in the original application and all subsequent renewals to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA). Those errors made the case appear stronger than it was, Horowitz said. FISA report drops: 7 takeaways from DOJ watchdog's Russia probe review. The report said investigators found no intentional misconduct or political bias surrounding either the launch of the Trump-Russia investigation or as efforts to seek the controversial FISA warrant to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in the early stages of that probe. "We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the FBI's decision to seek FISA authority on Carter Page," the report said. It also said key officials, including former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, did not act with political bias. IG report proves whole investigation was as corrupt as Comey. It's now official: Russia, Russia, Russia really was fake news from the start. There was no factual basis for the FBI to spy on Donald Trump's campaign. That means there was no need for the appointment of a special counsel and that Robert Mueller should have stayed in retirement. It means the two years of rumors and accusations and the giant cloud of suspicions over the White House produced by Mueller's headhunters were unfair and unjustified. It also means J. Edgar Hoover can finally rest in peace. James Comey is now revealed to be the dirtiest cop ever to run the FBI. AG Bill Barr Just Issued a Translation of the DOJ IG Report. Because the IG has no right to subpoena and can't lock anyone up, he can only refer people for prosecution. Currently, most of the people who conducted the abuse have been fired and were out of the purview of the IG. The IG report, however, found that officials lied and omitted helpful information to Trump campaign officials who were being spied on, but couldn't determine if the malfeasance was politically motivated. U.S. Attorney John Durham is looking into why the Trump spying case was hatched by people clearly pulling for Hillary Clinton to win the election. Brennan Lied About Not Including Steele Dossier In Intelligence Community Assessment On 2016 Russian Election Interference. The new report from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed former CIA Director John Brennan lied to Congress about whether the dossier authored by Christopher Steele was used in the Obama administration's Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA). The ICA, a report conducted by intelligence officials in 2016 on Russian election interference, was used to brief President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump in January 2017. According to the IG report, there was significant discussion by top intelligence officials as to whether the unverified Steele dossier should be included in the main body of the ICA report, summarized in an appendix, or even included at all. DOJ Watchdog Puts Final Nail In Steele Dossier's Coffin. A Justice Department watchdog's report released Monday [12/9/2019] definitively debunked one of the Steele dossier's most pervasive allegations of collusion, while severely undermining other hair-raising claims about Donald Trump and former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The report is unsparing of both Christopher Steele, the dossier author, and the FBI's handling of the salacious document. It paints a picture of Steele, a former British spy, as an eager gun-for-hire encumbered with a poor sense of judgment. The FBI, while absolved of a top-down, politically-motivated conspiracy to take down Trump, failed to verify any of Steele's allegations, and also omitted key pieces of information that contradicted the dossier. More about the Fusion GPS Dossier. 13 Things To Look For In The Inspector General FISA Abuse Report. [#1] Concerns about Federal Surveillance of Carter Page: Before looking at a list of concerns Horowitz's forthcoming report should address, here are the basics concerning the Page FISA warrants. According to the response memo Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) released to counter Nunes' memo, the "DOJ first applied to the [FISA court] on October 21, 2016 for a warrant to permit the FBI to initiate electronic surveillance and physical search of Page for 90 days, ... The Court approved three renewals — in early January 2017, early April 2017, and late June 2017 — which authorized the FBI to maintain surveillance on Page until late September 2017." We also know from "Nunes' HPSCI memo that former FBI director James Comey certified three of the FISA applications and former deputy director Andrew McCabe certified the fourth, while former deputy attorney general Sally Yates approved the initial October 21, 2016, application and the January 2017 renewal, and then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein signed the June 2017 and September 2017 renewals." U.S. Attorney John Durham Does Not Agree With IG Horowitz Conclusions. U.S. Attorney John Durham is currently doing a criminal investigation into how the intelligence community, CIA, ODNI and DOJ/FBI originated the investigation of candidate Donald Trump. U.S. Attorney Durham does not agree with the conclusions presented by Inspector General Horowitz. US Attorney John Durham Releases Statement Disputing IG Report Conclusions. The DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz finally released his report on FISA abuses on Monday [12/9/2019]. The report revealed what we knew to be true all along — the FBI defrauded the FISA court and purposely omitted exculpatory information from the FISA judges in order to obtain FOUR FISA warrants on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page. Horowitz, however concluded that the FBI investigation into Trump was not politically motivated — and John Durham hit back. Inspector General Report on DOJ and FBI Compliance With FISA Legal Requirements. First, with a volume of text over 600 pages, and potentially as high as 1,000 pages, there is no immediate analysis you will find in the media today based on a review of the report. [...] It is strongly suggested you read the report for yourself, draw your own conclusions, and don't rely on what could be sections taken out of context. Obviously crowdsourcing the report is one of the fastest ways to absorb information in a discussion thread. Secondly, keep in mind while the IG review began in March 2018 the Mueller investigation almost certainly kept many aspects of the material shielded from IG inquiry until the special counsel investigation ended. Indeed as we have seen from other material delayed throughout 2018, up to March 2019 when the Mueller probe ended, many documents were hidden (likely intentionally) by the special counsel. So a full unimpeded IG review likely did not begin until after the Mueller investigation concluded. Hence, some delays. Report: AG Barr Disagrees with IG on Whether Trump Surveillance Justified. Attorney General William Barr reportedly disagrees with a finding by the forthcoming Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General (IG) report that the FBI had sufficient reason to monitor the Trump campaign in 2016. The FBI conducted surveillance on Trump campaign associates, including foreign policy aide Carter Page, on the basis of suspicions that the campaign might have been colluding with Russia to interfere with the 2016 election. No evidence of collusion was ever found, though the surveillance continued well after the election, and the fact that the FBI was investigating the Trump campaign over Russia was leaked to Democrats and to the mainstream media. The 10 most important revelations to expect from the Russia probe FISA report. Next week Americans will finally get their most complete accounting to date of what the FBI did right and wrong in the Russia collusion investigation that probed President Trump's campaign with a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant at the end of the 2016 election. Predicted to span more than 500 pages and 100 witness interviews, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report Monday will provide a comprehensive catalog of what offenses, mistakes and oversights the FBI committed during one of the most politically polarizing investigations in recent history. As such, it will serve as a non-partisan roadmap for a much longer process of holding the investigators to account, a process that now includes a criminal probe being led by U.S. Attorney John Durham and investigative hearings by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham. Fusion GPS Chiefs Spin Hard Before the Horowitz Report. There are a few bombshells tucked in the new book authored by Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, co-owners of Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm responsible for the most infamous dossier in American political history. Here's one that — as far as I know — hasn't been disclosed until now: Before Fusion hired Christopher Steele in 2016 to produce his sketchy dossier on Donald Trump's presidential campaign, Steele hired Fusion to help him with a client at odds with a key figure in the Trump camp. The London-based operative, misleadingly portrayed in the press as a mere former British intelligence officer, needed help investigating the Trump advisor for his client. The campaign advisor? Paul Manafort. Steele's client? Vladimir Putin-tied oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Gen. Flynn's lawyer says Inspector General report will have everything. While Washington waits for the release of the Inspector General's report, some leaks are making their way around town. One America's Jack Posobiec spoke with Sidney Powell, General Michael Flynn's attorney, to learn how it may affect his case. [Video clip] AG Bill Barr Disputes IG Horowitz's Findings On the Trump-Russia Investigation. Attorney General Bill Barr is pushing back on IG Horowitz's coming findings on the Trump-Russia investigation. Recent reports have said that Horowitz will find no political bias in the investigation despite ample evidence numerous high level officials had it out for Trump. As with the IG's findings on the Hillary investigation, Horowitz's standard is apparently an admission under oath and sealed in blood, as he found dozens of pieces of evidence of bias there but still concluded there was nothing conclusive. Now, The Washington Post is saying Barr doesn't agree with his coming characterizations. Whitewash? IG Report on FISA Abuses by Obama Administration Will Disappoint the Right. Multiple media outlets are reporting that Justice Department Inspector General David Horowitz's report on abuses by Obama-era officials in obtaining FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign will almost certainly disappoint those who believe that political bias colored the FBI's investigation. The IG report is due out December 9, but already it appears that there will be no recommendations for indictments of major officials who were in charge of the investigation. [...] The FBI says the dossier did not play a significant role in acquiring the warrant to spy on Carter Page. But their communications say otherwise. Horowitz is apparently playing the old Washington game of misdirection. He will solemnly criticize the FBI for errors and carelessness in the warrant application while ignoring the bias and unprofessional attitude of FBI officials from top to bottom that contributed to getting the warrant in the first place. Why DOJ Inspector General Horowitz Had to Produce Two Reports. On Tuesday, Nov. 19, the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General released a new report. No, not that one. It was not the FISA abuse report, also dubbed "The Spygate Report," that has been anticipated for more than a year. This was a different report that involved serious issues with the FBI's uses of what are called "Confidential Human Sources" (CHS) or "informants". News and timely commentary about the Inspector General's report, released April 13, 2018: Scandals Sanitized with Linguistic Trickery. Throughout Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's massive report on the Hillary Clinton email investigation are lots of strange things. One of the weirdest is the extent to which the FBI went to make up words and phrases to disguise reality. An early draft of the 2016 FBI report on the email scandal was reportedly subjected to linguistic surgery to exonerate the former secretary of state, who at the time was the Democratic nominee for president. Clinton was originally found to be "grossly negligent" in using an illegal email server. That legalistic phrase is used by prosecutors to indict for violation of laws governing the wrongful transmission of confidential government documents. Yet the very thought of a likely President Clinton in court so worried the chief investigator, FBI Director James Comey, that he watered down "grossly negligent" to the mere "extremely careless." Horowitz: Over 300 Bribes To FBI Agents By Journalists; Two FBI Agents Who Hated Trump Still Work For Mueller; And More. Yesterday, the Department of Justice IG Michael Horowitz testified before Chuck Grassley's Senate Judiciary Committee. A few interesting points came out of that. First, we know that James Comey is the subject of an investigation into his leaking of classified information. We know that there is a grand jury sitting for some reason because the materials in the IG report were reviewed for grand jury testimony. [...] Today [6/19/2018], he's in front of Trey Gowdy's Government Accountability Committee and some really good stuff is coming out. The IG is examining Strzok's role in moving the Russia probe forward. Prediction: nothing comes of this because the damage it would do to the FBI and to Justice was would be astronomical if it were shown that the investigation was launched from political motives. And the issue of the Deep State would begin to look a lot more Third world than we'd like to think. FBI may have modified witness reports, misled DOJ watchdog with 'false information,' GOP Rep says. The FBI may have "edited and changed" key witness reports in the Hillary Clinton and Russia investigations, a top House Republican charged in a hearing into FBI and Justice Department misconduct Tuesday [6/19/2018]. Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C, also raised the possibility that the FBI misled the DOJ watchdog in an attempt to hide the identities of FBI employees who were caught sending anti-Trump messages. New Developments On Inspector General's Report Of Comey's FBI. On Wednesday [5/9/2018], CNN law enforcement analyst and retired FBI supervisory special agent James A. Gagliano revealed new insight into the Justice Department's Inspector General report that is expected to be released in the near future, saying it is even worse than expected, according to his sources. Gagliano tweeted: "Sources with knowledge of the impending DOJ Inspector General Report confirm that it will be a fairly damning indictment of FBI's seventh floor during the Comey era. 'It's worse than expected,' seems to be the consistent theme ..." IG Report Proves Andrew McCabe's Firing Was Justified. Ever since former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe was fired, McCabe and his Democrat supporters have maintained it was politically motivated. On Friday, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, a holdover from the Obama administration, released a long-awaited report that proves beyond doubt McCabe was fired for cause. [...] With respect to lack of candor, the report listed four instances on pages 4-5 and again with more detail on pages 15-21 with dates, times, and McCabe's own testimony, both under oath and not. IG Report Shows Andrew McCabe Is A Criminal — So When Is He Going To Jail? The initial Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report on former FBI assistant director Andrew McCabe hasn't gotten much attention since it was released on Friday, despite the fact that it is shocking. So shocking in fact, that when it was first leaked to the higher echelons of our government, it forced current FBI Director Christopher Wray to immediately relieve McCabe of duty and it eventually led to McCabe's firing without his government golden parachute. Loretta Lynch Threatened To Reopen Eric Garner Case If NYPD Leaked Info About Weiner's Laptop. Journalist Tracy Beanz uncovered an explosive detail about former Attorney General Loretta Lynch buried deep in the report from the Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General that was released last week. [...] When the NYPD seized [Anthony] Weiner's personal laptop as part of the investigation, they found hundreds of emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Weiner's wife at the time, Huma Abedin, has worked for Clinton for more than a decade. So Abedin and Clinton's work emails from the State Department, which contained classified information, were on Weiner's computer. That computer was in the NYPD's possession. All of this was discovered and announced in late October 2016, which was just prior to the presidential election. In an attempt to perhaps shield Clinton from more public scrutiny, the OIG report appears to show that Lynch threatened to reopen the Garner case — which involved the NYPD fatally shooting an African American — if officers leaked damaging information about Clinton's emails on Weiner's laptop. Inspector General Bombshell: Why Obama AG Loretta Lynch May Be in Legal Jeopardy. Hidden within the OIG report on McCabe's leak to Barrett of the WSJ, is an astronomically damning correlation between Loretta Lynch, the NY Field Office of the FBI, McCabe, and the NYPD. On September 28, 2016, McCabe is made aware of the information they found regarding Hillary Clinton on Anthony Weiners laptop in an unrelated "sexting" case they are investigating. Trail of James Comeys Dirt on Loretta Lynch Discovered within IG Report on Andrew McCabe. A very interesting development is unfolding as a result of internet researcher TracyBeanz and some insightful dot connecting by those following. The outline begins via a relatively under-reported accusation about former Attorney General Loretta Lynch by former FBI Director James Comey in his upcoming book. According to ABC News Comey writes in "A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership," that he became the public face of the investigation partly because of a mysterious development which he felt could cast "serious doubt" on Lynch's independence. It seems rather odd for James Comey to be making such an accusation against Loretta Lynch in the book. Why add that aspect? [A]nd why do so without expanding the details? 10 Key Insights From Today's Deep State Coup News. [#10] Lisa Page, the DOJ special counsel for the FBI during Obamagate, is a cooperating witness with Inspector General Horowitz. Her testimony — and text messages — are laced throughout today's [4/13/2018] IG report on Andrew McCabe's lies that led to his firing. Page's evidence is very likely instrumental to the more complete IG report due out in May. [#9] When The Wall Street Journal's Devlin Barrett reported on Andrew McCabe's conflict of interest with respect to the Hillary Clinton email investigation, the then-deputy director had a panic attack. Barrett reported that the state senate campaign of McCabe's wife was funded to the tune of more than half-a-million by Clinton proxy Terry McCauliffe. In fact, just days after revelations that Clinton operated an illegal email server for all State Department business became public, McCaullife visited Jill McCabe and encouraged her to run for office. Her husband Andrew would, under normal circumstances, have led any investigation into Hillary's illegal actions. Bombshell in McCabe IG Report No One Is Talking About. The Department of Justice Inspector General report on Andrew McCabe is centered around the leaks and lies of Andrew McCabe. Ignored in all of this was the reason he leaked. And it's a bombshell. He said a top Obama appointee, the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General (PADAG), ordered him to "stand down" in the Clinton Foundation investigation. There were witnesses. No one is talking about that. How The Obama Justice Department Tried To Shut Down The FBI's Investigation Into The Clinton Foundation. The Department of Justice Inspector General report on the "lack of candor" by FBI deputy Director Andrew McCabe also documents for the first time the Obama administration's effort to shut down the bureau's investigation of the Clinton Foundation, according to a review of the report by The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group. The inspector general (IG) confirmed in its long-awaited report released Friday that in 2016 the FBI had ongoing field investigations of the Clinton Foundation in New York, Los Angeles, Little Rock, Arkansas and Washington, D.C. The multi-city investigation was launched when agents found "suspicious activity" between a foreign donor and Clinton Foundation activity in the Los Angeles area, as TheDCNF reported in August 2016. Editor's note: This excerpt is presented here
in its original form — Twitter-ese: IG report: FBI's Andrew McCabe 'admonished' other officials for his own leaks. As deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe "admonished" other FBI officials over leaks he himself authorized. That's one of the damning revelations the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General released in a Friday [4/13/2018] report. "Crafty plan," was how Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan described the McCabe revelation to The Daily Caller News Foundation. McCabe berating other FBI officials over the leaks suggests he was "trying to cover his tracks," House Judiciary Committee member Jordan said. Inspector General First Release — Chris Farrell: "I don't think the FBI recovers from this". Judicial Watch Director of Investigations Chris Farrell discusses the DOJ inspector general's report that outlines exhaustive political corruption. OIG release #1 proving former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe authorized leaks to the media, then lied to FBI investigators in an effort to cover them up. [Video clip] An extremely interesting letter. What we are seeing is an unfolding process, meticulously planned. The Strzok/Page leaks, McCabe report today, what's coming: it's a cascading series of bombshells, aimed at taking down the Obama/Clinton crooks. Team Trump, esp Sessions, has full control over the momentum and pressure. The hysterical tweets of Obama and Clintons people, as well as the unhinged stories their media slaves are publishing, shows you how.much they're panicking. The McCabe Report Drops the Hammer. When outgoing FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was fired on the eve of his retirement last month, many Democrats protested that he was being cheated out of his pension for purely political reasons. But the administration's official line — that McCabe had been fired for "lack of candor" after lying to investigators about press disclosures he authorized — turns out to have been right on the money, according to a Justice Department report released Friday afternoon [4/13/2018]. IG Report Outlines How Obama DOJ Worked To Shut Down Investigation Into Clinton Crime Syndicate. Lost in the haze of the Syria bombing, the Establishment Media's purposeful ignorance, and the ongoing ripples following the stunning FBI raid on the offices of President Trump's longtime attorney, is the scathing outline by the Inspector General regarding how the Obama Department of Justice aggressively shut down what was to be a widespread investigation into the Clinton Foundation looking into allegations of widespread financial crimes. Talk about obstruction of justice! DOJ OIG McCabe Report Finds Obama's FBI and DOJ: Corrupt, Dishonest, Coordinated and Conspiring. The IG's report related to terminated and humiliated former FBI Head Andrew McCabe is 39 pages in length. [...] Overall Comments: [#1] The tone of the memo chastises McCabe for leaking that the Clinton Foundation investigation was open, not to challenge the rationale for not sharing this investigation with the public, but rather criticizes McCabe for outing the Justice Department official trying to shut down the investigation. Although perhaps it may not be customary to challenge the Departments' decisions, due to subject in the investigation [the Clinton Foundation], by not releasing the information about the investigation the FBI and DOJ prevented pertinent information from being reported to the American public significant to the election. This information was not released until October 30th in a leak to the WSJ. [#2] Many of the FBI and DOJ characters in the report appear corrupt, coordinated and conspiring to assist with the cover up of the Clinton Foundation investigation and in leaking information to the press. Indict McCabe. Jimmy the Weasel Comey's flunky deputy director Andrew the Leaker McCabe lied under oath to Congress, according to the Department of Justice inspector general. Indict McCabe for perjury, lying to a federal official, and disclosing classified information. Andrew McCabe and James Comey Deserve Each Other. According to the just released report by the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe wrongfully caused sensitive law enforcement information to be leaked to the Wall Street Journal and then lied to investigators about having done so. The report runs thirty-five single spaced pages and lays out in excruciating, meticulous, and damning detail how McCabe authorized an anonymous leak calculated to make it appear that he had resisted pressure by Loretta Lynch's Justice Department to close down the FBI's investigation of the Clinton Foundation during the 2016 election campaign and then proceeded to cover his tracks with lies. Andrew McCabe Admonished FBI Officials For His Own Leaks. As deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe "admonished" other FBI officials over leaks he himself authorized. That's one of the damning revelations the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General released in a Friday [4/13/2018] report. "Crafty plan," was how Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan described the McCabe revelation to The Daily Caller News Foundation. McCabe berating other FBI officials over the leaks suggests he was "trying to cover his tracks," House Judiciary Committee member Jordan said. James Comey's book: This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. James Comey's TV interview, April 15, 2018: This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. Disgruntled, whistle-blowing FBI agents: FBI veteran's tell-all reveals 'era of abuse' and destruction of bureau under Mueller and Comey. According to Mike German, a well-respected 16-year FBI veteran who left the agency as a whistleblower in 2004, between 2001 and 2017 then-FBI Directors Robert Mueller (2001-2013) and James Comey (2013-2017) turned the once-highly-respected agency into a "lawless law enforcer." These and more revelations are reportedly revealed in German's latest book, "Disrupt, Discredit, and Divide: How the New FBI Damages Democracy." McCabe Confirms Some FBI Employees [were] 'Frustrated' No Charges [were] Brought Against Hillary Clinton. Former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe lent some credibility to a previous White House claim that some FBI personnel were upset over the agency's decision, under the leadership of disgraced ex-FBI Director James Comey, not to charge Hillary Clinton in the criminal probe of her private email server use. The claim that some FBI rank-and-file workers lost confidence in Comey following his infamous press conference announcing that no charges would be brought has been in dispute. Daily Caller Reporting Confirmed that Some FBI Agents Were Fed Up With Comey. Reporting done previously by The Daily Caller confirmed White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders' claim that some FBI agents were indeed unhappy with former FBI Director James Comey's leadership. The Caller reported in October 2016 that FBI agents lost confidence in Comey after seeing how the bureau handled the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails. But since the release of the Mueller report, media outlets have pounced on Sanders for saying that FBI agents had issues with Comey. 'Irreparable damage to the bureau' — former FBI agents sound off on James Comey. James Comey has recognized a kindred spirit in Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, who in 1951, penned the immortal lines, "Do not go gentle into that good night ... Rage, rage against the dying of the light." To wit, the former FBI director confidently strode up to microphones following two days of contentious testimony before House lawmakers, and let it all hang out. Comey, the man some sympathetic media-types have referred to as a humble servant-leader, seized the opportunity to settle some old scores as he pilloried Fox News and the Republican Party. "Rank and File" — A Conspicuous Absence of Visible Indignation. Against a rather enlightening week of activity from within the DOJ and FBI, last night I posited the question: "If the FBI and DOJ were not institutionally corrupt wouldn't we have seen multiple whistle-blowers this year?" The purpose of the question is to draw attention to an empirical reality. By now we understand many of the big picture details behind DOJ and FBI efforts to weaponize the institutions of government to target their political opposition, namely Donald Trump. With the removal of so many officials within the institutions, the question becomes less rhetorical. If the corruption is removed, where are the 'rank and file' whistle-blowers surfacing from underneath the now replaced leadership? Why haven't we seen anyone from within the system come forth to tell their story? Almost, but not quite off-topic: FBI agent removed from Russia probe for anti-Trump texts says he's willing to testify before Congress. The FBI agent who was removed from the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign for sending anti-Trump texts intends to testify before the House Judiciary Committee and any other congressional committee that asks, his attorney said in a letter made public Sunday [6/17/2018]. Peter Strzok, who was singled out in a recent Justice Department inspector general report for the politically charged messages, would be willing to testify without immunity, and he would not invoke his Fifth Amendment rights in response to any question, his attorney, Aitan Goelman, said in an interview Sunday. Strzok has become a special target of President Trump, who has used the texts to question the Russia investigation. Goelman said Strzok "wants the chance to clear his name and tell his story." Top FBI Insider Who Quit Over Rigged Hillary Probe Ready to Spill Beans on Comey & Obama to Congress. An FBI agent who quit his top position over the bureau's handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation is heading to Congress to testify. John Giacalone, who led the Clinton investigation for the first seven months, will reportedly expose former President Barack Obama and fired FBI Director James Comey for corruptly helping Clinton. There's a massive media blackout on this because Giacalone is expected to testify that top brass at the FBI rigged the investigative process so that Clinton could skirt charges for clear violations of the law. Exposing Comey also shines a big light on Obama, who many believe was calling the shots behind the scenes to help Clinton. Sources: FBI Agents Afraid To Testify, Say Congress Likely Won't Protect Them. Even as a new Rasmussen poll shows a majority of voters believe senior law enforcement officials broke the law to stop Donald Trump from beating Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, rank-and-file FBI agents who want to testify against their superiors to Congress feel they can't due to an ineffective whistleblower protection law. These agents believe the sluggishness of the law exposes them to an inordinate risk of reprisal, so they have remained in hiding and afraid to speak the truth. Agent Who Quit Over Rigged Hillary Investigation Heads to Congress. An FBI agent who allegedly quit the bureau over his belief that the Hillary Clinton email investigation was rigged will testify before the House of Representatives, The Hill reported. The joint investigation between the House Judiciary and the Oversight Committees — led by Republican Reps. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia and Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, respectively — has been a source of consternation for Republicans and Democrats alike. Conservatives have complained about the slow pace of the examination into how the Clinton email investigation was conducted, noting that only two witnesses have appeared before it. Tone Deaf Rod Rosenstein Should Be Fired. [Scroll down] "There are [FBI] agents all over this country who love the bureau and are sickened by [James] Comey's behavior and [Andrew] McCabe and [Eric] Holder and [Loretta] Lynch and the thugs like [John] Brennan — who despise the fact that the bureau was used as a tool of political intelligence by the Obama administration thugs," Joe DiGenova, a former United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, told the Daily Caller. "They are just waiting for a chance to come forward and testify." In a statement to the Daily Caller, reported by the awesome Kerry Pickett, an unnamed FBI agent claimed, "Every special agent I have spoken to in the Washington Field Office wants to see McCabe prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. They feel the same way about Comey." Grassley Reminds FBI Agents Wanting to Blow the Whistle: You Are Legally Protected to Do So. According to media reports this week, a number of FBI agents are hoping to get subpoenaed in the Russia probe so they can expose corruption at the top of the Bureau. In other words, guys on the ground are ready to talk about decisions made by the suits in Washington D.C. Heads Will Roll. It may take a few more months to clear away all of the remaining roadblocks and stonewalling. But, the incriminating documents will inevitably be procured. Too many people were part of the plot. Some will cop a plea. Professionals inside the FBI are now coming forward, asking to be subpoenaed so that they can testify before Congress. Motivated to clean up this mess, they want to share what they know. President Trump is now fully engaged and demanding complete transparency. Even his worst detractors would attest to his tenacity. Once Professor Halper is extradited from Oxford and is facing the possibility of life in prison for his central role in the conspiracy, he will sing like an Irish tenor. Sources: FBI Agents Want Congress To Issue Them Subpoenas So They Can Reveal The Bureau's Dirt. Many agents in the FBI want Congress to subpoena them so they can reveal problems caused by former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, three people in direct contact with active field agents tell TheDC. "There are agents all over this country who love the bureau and are sickened by [James] Comey's behavior and [Andrew] McCabe and [Eric] Holder and [Loretta] Lynch and the thugs like [John] Brennan — who despise the fact that the bureau was used as a tool of political intelligence by the Obama administration thugs," former federal prosecutor Joe DiGenova told The Daily Caller Tuesday. "They are just waiting for a chance to come forward and testify." Report: Rank-and-File FBI Agents Eager to Blow Whistle on Comey, Holder, Lynch. A new report claims that a significant number of rank-and-file FBI agents are chomping at the bit to expose Obama-era leaders, alleging corruption and even criminal violations of the law. These agents are signaling that the only way they can safely and legally blow the whistle is if Congress subpoenas them individually to provide information about their former bosses. "There are agents all over this country who love the bureau and are sickened by [James] Comey's behavior and [Andrew] McCabe and [Eric] Holder and [Loretta] Lynch and the thugs like [John] Brennan — who despise the fact that the bureau was used as a tool of political intelligence by the Obama administration thugs," Joe DiGenova, a former United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, told the Daily Caller. Coming attractions: FBI agents speaking out about the abuses of Comey and McCabe. President Trump this morning on Twitter applied the name "Spygate" to the ongoing revelations about the FBI and the Intelligence Community employing their technological and human agent tools to spy on the Trump presidential campaign and transition. [...] It's a good title for what is going to be a long form reality television program (as well as a political scandal and constitutional crisis, among other far-reaching consequences). Despite the best efforts of the Trump-hating, Russia-Stormy Daniels-obsessed media to ignore it, the story is going to build into a major factor in the coming midterm elections and far beyond. Kevin Clinesmith What Other FISA Cases Was Kevin Clinesmith Involved In? The DOJ-NatSec Division and FBI reported issues of fraud upon the FISA court in October and November prior to the IG FISA report release. Specifically the DOJ notified the FISC that OGC Kevin Clinesmith had manipulated and falsified evidence. On December 5th, Judge Coller responded to that series of notifications with an order. On December 9th, when the IG FISA report was made public, the FISC was given a declassified version of the report and was able to review for the first time. It was from that IG review that Collyer was able to establish the full context of the fraud upon the court. The court was given no advanced notification as to the totality of fraud upon the FISC other than a preliminary 'head's up' on the OGC Clinesmith compromise. Who Watches the Watchmen? It was recently reported that FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith altered an email to bolster a suspicious FBI effort to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant authorizing the surveillance of Carter Page, a onetime employee of the Trump campaign. If true, Clinesmith helped the FBI successfully delude the court into granting what was likely an illegal request to spy on the Trump campaign. Clinesmith was reportedly expelled from special counsel Robert Mueller's legal team for cheering on opposition to the Trump presidency by writing "Viva la resistance!" in a text message discussion. Corruption at the FBI, CIA and DOJ. One symptom of a society in crisis is the unreliability or even corruption of its own auditors. After all, when the watchmen have lost moral authority to watch, who can be believed or trusted? Or, as the Roman satirist Juvenal famously put it, "Who will guard the guardians?" It was recently reported that FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith altered an email to bolster a suspicious FBI effort to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant authorizing the surveillance of Carter Page, a onetime employee of the Trump campaign. If true, Mr. Clinesmith helped the FBI successfully delude the court into granting what was likely an illegal request to spy on the Trump campaign. Mr. Clinesmith was reportedly expelled from special counsel Robert Mueller's legal team for cheering on opposition to the Trump presidency by writing "Viva la resistance!" in a text message discussion. Disturbing
Likelihood — FBI Lawyer Manipulated Carter Page's Own Communication With FBI to Target Him. There is
a very strong likelihood the documentary material that FBI Lawyer Kevin Clinesmith falsified was actual communication from
Carter Page to the FBI where Page was seeking their help in 2017. This revelation would explain and reconcile two seemingly
contrasting points: FBI lawyer suspected in Russia probe origin was kicked off Mueller team for anti-Trump texts: Report. The FBI lawyer under criminal investigation for allegedly altering a document connected to the surveillance of a Trump adviser was kicked off ex-special counsel Robert Mueller's team for anti-Trump texts, according to a report Friday [11/22/2019]. The New York Times identified Kevin Clinesmith as the former FBI attorney under investigation by U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is probing the origins of the Russia probe. It was reported Thursday that Mr. Durham is probing whether an FBI lawyer falsified an email that was used to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant to surveil Mr. Page. Mr. Clinesmith was the primary FBI attorney assigned to the Russia probe in 2017. New York Times Confirms Peter Strzok Team Underling, Kevin Clinesmith, is FBI Lawyer Who Altered FISA Application. The New York Times is confirming that Kevin Clinesmith is the "low-level lawyer" within the FBI who doctored evidence within the Carter Page FISA application. As anticipated, the DOJ and FBI 'small group' leaks are from their individual review of a heavily compartmented IG report; and now they are being selectively shaped by the favorite 'small group' media network: NY Times, Washington Post, CNN, Politico et al. Remember, each of the principals only was able to see the draft of the IG report specific to their outline therein. All principal reviews were very compartmented. No principal has any idea what the bottom line conclusions are from the totality of the assembled compartments. House GOPer unmasks identities of anti-Trump FBI agents. A House Republican Tuesday [6/19/2018] unmasked two of the five FBI investigators cited in the recently released inspector general's report for expressing anti-Trump and pro-Clinton sentiment in work-related instant messages. The previously unnamed FBI officials — "FBI Attorney 2" and "Agent 5" — are Kevin Clinesmith and Sally Moyer, respectively, according to House Judiciary Committee member Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), who revealed their identities over the objection of the FBI during a hearing on the IG's findings. The two were assigned to the bureau's Hillary Clinton email investigation, according to the IG's report, while Clinesmith also later worked as a top lawyer on the Trump-Russia investigation and the special-counsel probe. Update and correction: Washington Awaits John Durham. We shall have to wait until December 9 to hear from Inspector General Horowitz as to what those "systematic failures" were. Do these early reports on his work forecast a whitewash? It would appear so. But can anyone really take seriously that those "systematic failures" took place in the absence of bias? Such a claim requires a great deal of contortion. And the spate of stories last week suggest the form that contortion will take: blame will fall not on Peter "We Will Stop Him" Strzok, the virulent Trump-hater who orchestrated the spying on the Trump campaign, but on a low-level lawyer named Kevin Clinesmith. Carter Page This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. Redacted FISA documents released July 21, 2018: Update: Tucker Carlson Calls On GOP Lawmakers to Read Entire Unredacted FISA Memo on House Floor. On Wednesday night [8/1/2018] Tucker Carlson called on Republican lawmakers to go to the floor of the US House of Representatives and read all of the FISA memos in their unredacted form. The deep state FBI released the FISA documents to Republican lawmakers ten days ago but the pages were highly redacted to protect the identities of corrupt Obama and intelligence officials. Tucker called on the lawmakers to do what Dianne Feinstein did and read the entire memo on the House floor. Next step: House Intel asks Trump to declassify rest of FISA application; tantalizing clues about pages 10-12 and 17-34. The release of a heavily-redacted version of the FBI's application for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to wiretap onetime Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page has spurred calls to remove the redactions, to un-black out the pages blacked out by the FBI before the document was made public. The long sections of censored material have made it impossible to reach definitive conclusions about the warrant application. It has also led to the publication of de-contextualized sensational accusations. For example, page 8 of the original warrant application contains a passage which begins with two blacked-out lines, then includes the words "the FBI believes that the Russian Government's efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with Candidate #1's [Donald Trump's] campaign," and continues with more blacked-out material. Is there a critical prefatory clause in that sentence fragment? The answer is unclear. FISA Applications Confirm: The FBI Relied on the Unverified Steele Dossier. [Scroll down] In each Carter Page FISA warrant application, the FBI represented that it had "reviewed this verified application for accuracy." But did the bureau truly ensure that the information had been "thoroughly vetted and confirmed"? Remember, we are talking here about serious, traitorous allegations against an American citizen and, derivatively, an American presidential campaign. When the FBI averred that it had verified for accuracy the application that posited these allegations, it was, at best, being hyper-technical, and thus misleading. What the bureau meant was that its application correctly stated the allegations as Steele had related them. But that is not what "verification" means. The issue is not whether Steele's allegations were accurately described; it is whether they were accurate, period. Andrew McCarthy Discusses The Stunningly Scant and Manipulated FISA Application. Andrew McCarthy appears on Fox weekend to discuss the released FISA Court application used to obtain and conduct Title-1 active surveillance on U.S. Person Carter Page. McCarthy's response is worth watching because he only recently (May) red-pilled himself and realized how corrupt the DOJ and FBI had actually become. Prior to May of this year he was defending/reconciling every new detail to the benefit of DOJ/FBI. [Video clip] Mark Levin: Abolish Secret FISA Court If Judges Can't Be Held Accountable. Appearing on FNC's 'Hannity' Thursday night [7/19/2018], LevinTV host Mark Levin spoke about a letter his organization sent to FISA court judges on alleged abuses from the Nunes memo. "If you're a judge ... and you don't do something about it? Congress needs to look into this!" Levin said. "I damn well expect federal judges serving as FISA court judges to make sure that [misconduct] wasn't committed in front of them." At Best, The FBI Misled The Court To Wiretap Trump Campaign, FISA Application Shows. The heavily redacted FISA application the FBI used to obtain a warrant to spy on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page is supposed to vindicate the FBI from charges of political bias. But there can be no doubt that the FBI withheld pertinent information from the judges who approved a highly intrusive domestic spying operation during a presidential campaign. The Withered Branches on Mueller's Poisoned Tree. The civil libertarians of the press — those card-carrying ACLU members who toss and turn at night worrying about the diminution of "privacy" — all rushed to the defense of the FBI after the release of its disgracefully flimsy FISA warrant on Carter Page. The hypocrisy of it all takes one's breath away, as reporters and commentators, normally so censorious of privacy violations, coldly cheered the government's harassment of Page. The evidentiary basis for the warrant was nil. It rested upon nothing more than Hillary's opposition research and partisan articles in the press, some of which were fed to the reporters by Hillary's opposition researcher. Confirmed: DOJ Used Materially False Information To Secure Wiretaps On Trump Associate. Newly released documents confirm House and Senate investigators' claims that the Department of Justice and FBI used materially false and misleading information to secure wiretaps on Carter Page, a former volunteer foreign policy advisor to President Trump. The highly redacted documents released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests show how the FBI was able to convince the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to surveil the Naval Academy graduate and energy consultant for a year of his life. The wiretap was applied for and granted in October 2016, shortly before the end of the presidential campaign. Approved applications last for 90 days. The Department of Justice requested and received three renewals, for a total of one year of surveillance. Despite claiming to the court in 2016 that "the FBI believes that Page has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian Government," the government has yet to charge Page with breaking any of the serious laws it alleges he knowingly transgressed. Proven Lies to the FISA Court Should Immediately End Mueller's Investigation. We now know for a fact that the FISA court was illegally deceived by the Obama Administration. The fake Russian dossier, paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign, was used to get warrants in order to spy on Donald Trump's campaign. The Trump Russian collusion story was a hoax created by the Hillary Clinton campaign. The Obama Administration used that hoax in order to illegally spy on its political enemies. 2016 Text Uncovered: Shows That Spy Op On Trump Campaign Leads All The Way Back To Obama White House. The liberal media has been denying all allegations for more than a year now that the Obama White House had surveilled the Trump presidential campaign back in 2016. We are now lead to believe that the Obama administration had, in fact, spied on the Trump campaign after a recently leaked admission of one "informant." This individual had been "querying marginal Trump campaign associates for information about supposed connections to Russia on behalf of former President Barack Obama's FBI," according to the Conservative Tribune. Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte Discusses Fraudulent/Misleading FISA Application. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte is deeply connected to the investigation on the specifics of the FISA abuse. The House Judiciary Committee has primary oversight over the FISA Court and the use therein by the DOJ. [...] Earlier today [7/22/2018] Goodlatte joined Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures to discuss the Carter Page FISA Warrant, all it's redactions, and plans to proceed. Additionally Chairman Goodlatte discusses John Brennan, James Comey, and Loretta Lynch being sought for questioning on their actions during the 2016 Presidential Election; as well as compliance responses from Peter Strzok, Rod Rosenstein and Lisa Page. The current DOJ and FBI elements of the intelligence community are only slightly less corrupt internally than they were prior to the Trump inauguration. Institutionally they are still full of corrupt individuals; and administratively they are managed by people concerned about retaining/protecting the institutions — not eliminating the corruption. In our ongoing opinion this institutional emphasis is misplaced and misguided at best, and complicit at worst; likely more the latter. The Associated Press Lies About The FISA Application. The Associated Press carries on a daily vendetta against the Trump administration, systematically misleading the American people in articles that appear in hundreds or thousands of newspapers. Thus, it is no surprise that the AP's story on DOJ's FISA application dump is nothing but Democratic Party spin. Donald Trump: FISA Warrant to Spy on Campaign 'a Disgrace to America'. President Donald Trump highlighted Monday the revelation of the FISA warrant used to spy on one of his foreign policy advisers Carter Page. The heavily redacted set of documents were released to the public on Saturday, revealing that the unverified dossier created by Christopher Steele and paid for by the DNC was used to spy on the Trump campaign. Even heavily redacted, the FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign is shocking. 450 pages pertaining to the FBI's FISA Warrant to spy on Carter Page have been released. Heavily redacted. Even with redactions, wow. There is NO DOUBT at this point the fake Steele Dossier was used to get this FISA Warrant. Months of pimping that Papadopoulos fake narrative down the toilet! Time to remind everybody yet again of what they already know: after TWO YEARS 'agent of a foreign power' Carter Page has been charged with... what was that? Take a guess. NOTHING. Did the FBI Lie to the FISA Court? Consider the source. The FBI did not allow the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to do just that. Instead, the heavily-redacted application for a warrant to surveil U.S. citizen Carter Page obscures the source. It never says, at least in the unredacted portions, that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid operatives to dig dirt on Donald Trump. This allows the warrant to talk of "research" and not "opposition research." The warrant application shields the partisan origins of the "dossier" and talks of a "law firm" hiring the investigators. In reality, Hillary Clinton's campaign and the DNC paid the law firm, which paid Fusion GPS, which paid Christopher Steele (and, given the reference to a "U.S. person" in the warrant, perhaps others — unless that "U.S. person" was, in fact, a U.K. person, which complicates the narrative of foreign interference) to conduct opposition research. The FBI Goes Full Nixon with FISA Report. Now, forced by a long-standing FOIA, the FBI has released, on a Saturday of course (we're lucky it wasn't Christmas day), 400 plus pages of FISA court material used to justify the surveillance of Carter Page... only three hundred plus pages were redacted, blacked out and completely unreadable. FISA warrant application supports Nunes memo. The weekend release of a highly-redacted version of the FBI's application for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to wiretap onetime Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page has renewed the argument over the Nunes memo — the brief report produced by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes detailing problems in the application. From the time of the memo's release in February, Democrats and some in the press have denounced it as a collection of lies and mischaracterizations. On Saturday night, the denouncing started again. "The only thing the newly released FISA documents show is that Republicans have been lying for months," the lefty think tank Center for American Progress said in a typical response. Now, however, we have both the memo and the FISA application, if in a blacked-out state. We can compare the two. And doing so shows the Nunes memo was overwhelmingly accurate. Perhaps some Democrats do not believe it should have been written, or they dispute what it included and left out, or they do not agree with its conclusions, but it was in fact accurate. A Deep Dive into the Scandalous FISA Warrant Used to Spy on the Trump Campaign. For those who haven't had the time to review the 412-page FISA application that was used to spy on the Trump campaign, I've culled a few key highlights. [#1] The application lied about Carter Page. Carter Page is described as "an agent of a foreign power", which was and is clearly not the case. Carter Page is walking around free as a bird, giving interviews to anyone who asks, and stating that the FBI lied about him repeatedly. [...] The entire Mueller special counsel was predicated upon a mountain of lies. It needs to be terminated today. This is the greatest political scandal in American history. Justice Dept. Releases Secret Carter Page Surveillance Documents at Center of Partisan Clash. The Trump administration has disclosed a previously top-secret set of documents related to the wiretapping of Carter Page, the onetime Trump campaign adviser who was at the center of highly contentious accusations by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee that the F.B.I. had abused its surveillance powers. Democrats in February rejected the Republican claims that law enforcement officials had improperly obtained the warrant, accusing them of putting out misinformation to defend President Trump and sow doubts about the origin of the Russia investigation. But even as Republicans and Democrats issued dueling memos characterizing the materials underlying the surveillance of Mr. Page, the public had no access to the records. Why is Mueller handing off key cases? Something has been going on with Robert Mueller's investigation of people thought to have played significant roles in the Trump-Russia affair. The special counsel, assigned to investigate "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Trump," has been farming out seemingly important parts of the investigation to offices outside his own. In April, Mueller referred an investigation of close Trump associate Michael Cohen to federal prosecutors in New York. This month, the U.S. attorney in Washington — not Mueller — indicted Maria Butina on charges of being an unregistered Russian agent. And also this month, when Mueller charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking Democratic Party and Clinton campaign offices, he immediately turned the case over to the Justice Department's National Security Division for prosecution. Newly Released FISA Docs Contradict Strzok's Sworn Claims He Had Nothing to Do With Carter Page FISA Warrant. Obama's Deep State FBI and DOJ obtained a FISA warrant on Carter Page in October of 2016 and three subsequent renewals in order to spy on Trump's campaign and transition team. Comey, Rosenstein, McCabe and Sally Yates all signed the FISA applications even though Hillary's fraudulent Russia dossier was used as a pretext to obtain the warrants. DOJ releases 412 pages of top-secret FISA documents on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The Justice Department released on Saturday more than 400 pages of top-secret documents pertaining to the FISA warrant obtained to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The documents were first obtained by the New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act request. "This application targets Carter Page," the document said. "The F.B.I. believes Page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian government." Andrew McCabe This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. McCabe and Rosenstein This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. Rod Rosenstein This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. Rod Rosenstein announces an indictment on July 13, 2018 Christopher Wray Why Does Barr Let Wray Lie and Flout the Law? Judicial Watch submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on February 16, 2018, to the FBI. It sought text messages sent from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2015, between FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and FBI attorney Lisa Page, FBI Special Agent Jennifer Leonard, FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, and/or Obama administration Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco. In response, the FBI denied the request, asserting (incredibly) that text messages are not subject to FOIA. Judicial Watch challenged the FBI's determination. It filed an administrative appeal with the Department of Justice arguing that "text messages involving government-related business sent between government officials, whom all of the persons identified in the scope of the request are, do in fact constitute government records that fall within the purview of FOIA." In response, the Justice Department's Office of Information Policy remanded Judicial Watch's request for "further review," but the FBI ignored the directive and continues to withhold any text messages. Judicial Watch sued on October 19, 2020, just a few days ago, after the FBI failed to respond (again) to the remanded request. How corrupt is FBI Director Wray? Let me count the ways. If Americans disgusted at the shameless, partisan shenanigans of former FBI head James Comey thought Christopher Wray was going to come in and clean house at the now disgraced agency, they've got another think coming. To be fair, incoming Director Wray was faced with a multitude of questionable FBI actions — and failures to act — by Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Clinesmith, et al. There is voluminous evidence, for those with eyes to see, that Comey's crew purposely tanked two separate investigations into Crooked Hillary and the Clinton Foundation. They followed that up by setting up President Trump's national security advisor, Gen. Mike Flynn, and trying to imprison him for doing nothing wrong, a process that continues to this day thanks to rogue federal judge Emmet Sullivan. Worse still, the FBI was also busy spying on Donald Trump, his campaign and his administration, based on nonsense they knew was paid for by Hillary Clinton and promoted by John Brennan, the equally repulsive and mendacious head of Obama's CIA. Is China Now In Control of Our Flow of Information? This week, the matter came to a head when Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed they will prevent Americans from seeing the New York Post's explosive article about incriminating emails, documents, and pictures stemming from Hunter Biden's laptop. The emails implicate Joe Biden and the Chinese Communist Party. [...] The laptop was dropped off at a repair shop and not retrieved. After a 90-day period, the owner of the repair shop contacted the FBI and gave them the hard drive. He retained one for himself and gave two other copies away lest he be killed. The FBI sat on that hard drive for a year. It begs the question whether Christopher Wray, by not conducting an investigation, is covering for the Bidens? If so, he must be fired immediately! Is the FBI now censoring information and engaging in political partisanship on behalf of China? Christopher Wray Must Go. The FBI did everything it could to influence both the 2016 and 2018 election cycles in favor of the Democrats with largely exaggerated claims about Russian interference, and completely fabricated claims that they made those efforts in coordination with the 2016 Trump Campaign and 2018 Trump Administration. That is a matter of historical fact. Given that history, can anyone doubt that Christopher Wray, who led the raging dumpster fire agency's 2018 Russia collusion smear effort, was about to do it all over again yesterday, just 12 days prior to Election Day? Unfortunately for Wray, though, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe is not on board with the program. He's what the DC Swamp denizens like to call an outlier, a wholly inconvenient person of power who isn't going along with the program. When news circulated late Wednesday afternoon [10/21/2020] that the FBI was going to hold an important press event to discuss election interference by foreign enemies, those of us who have followed this stuff for the past four years had a single expectation: Wray was about to scream Russia collusion all over again. FBI Director Chris Wray On The Bubble? If the Senate Intelligence Committee (SSCI) was not so comprehensively corrupt, it's likely FBI Director Christopher Wray would have been replaced a long time ago. Wray is an abject failure in his position. FBI Director faces scrutiny over refusal to name Antifa as organization. Testifying before Congress, FBI Director Christopher Wray faced questions from lawmakers on the FBI's flawed understanding of Antifa. "Antifa is a real thing. It is a not a fiction," Wray said, "but it is not an organization or a structure, we understand it to be more of a kind of a movement, or maybe you could call it an ideology." Rep. Daniel Crenshaw was not impressed, and immediately challenged the FBI Director's assertions, "That seems to me to be down-playing it... This is an ideology that organizes locally, it coordinates regionally and nationally, it wears a standardized uniform, it collects funds to buy high-powered lasers to blind federal officers, build homemade explosive devices, feed their rioters since they clearly aren't working and then bail out those who have been arrested... This is an ideology that has trained its members, makes shield wall phalanxes to attack federal officers. It formed an autonomous zone in an American city and besieged a federal courthouse in another, so it just seems to be more than an ideology." Wray Is Wrong as FBI Director. In May of 2017, President Trump did the right thing and fired FBI Director James Comey, the individual at the center of the attempt to overturn the 2016 election results. Comey orchestrated the spying efforts on President Trump and his campaign, which included the FBI improperly applying for four separate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrants to eavesdrop on campaign aide Carter Page. He also authorized a politically motivated investigation into Lt. General Michael Flynn and encouraged the entrapment of Flynn by his FBI agents in an infamous White House interview. Clearly, Comey was a disastrous FBI Director; however, the President made a terrible choice when he replaced him with Christopher Wray, a bureaucrat who has not reformed the agency in any meaningful way. He also seems to be incapable of identifying the real threats that are facing the country. As Impeachment Ends, It's Time to Correct These Nine Injustices. [#3] Fire or demote Christopher Wray. Wray seems like a nice guy. But he's not the right person to reform the FBI. In fact, it's getting worse under his supervision. As bad as James Comey was, there's a case to be made that Wray is worse. Since he took office, we've had a fresh new round of serious spying misconduct by the FBI and he's allowed the FBI's informant program to become even more dysfunctional than it was (to name just two examples.) Devin Nunes Threatens Criminal Referrals for Chris Wray and Dana Boente. Those who haven't followed the backstory might not catch what Nunes is saying. However, if you followed closely, and accept that Rosenstein was part of the problem, then you see how FBI Director Christopher Wray came into office; and, more importantly how/why Wray selected former DOJ-NSD head Dana Boente to shift from main justice to be legal counsel for the FBI. Boente took over for former chief legal counsel James Baker, after the discoveries around Baker and McCabe could no longer be hidden. After being removed from responsibility eventually Baker resigned and went to work with the Lawfare group. Boente's job at FBI was/is to bury information, block congressional inquiry, and protect the crew. Boente, along with Christopher Wray, is still there. President Trump Calls Out FBI Director Christopher Wray: "the director is protecting the coup gang". Finally President Trump indicates he is well aware of the intents and motives of FBI Director Christopher Wray covering for the illegal coup effort. [...] President Trump may have been aware of Chris Wray's corrupt disposition prior to today; however, this is the first visible indication he understands the internecine organization of it. Hopefully we can start the countdown clock to Wray's exit. FBI Vault Release — FBI Requested Data Forensics on Huma Abedin/Clinton Laptop AFTER the 2016 Election, Not Before. FBI Director Wray seems like an affable person who is, by all reasonable evaluations, entirely way-over-his-head in dealing with the systemic rot, cancer and corruption. Sound harsh? Go back and WATCH the post IG report (Clinton email investigation) press conference; it's not harsh. It takes a particular kind of corruption manager to stand in front of a national audience and tell the world there was no bias in the Clinton email investigation... yet, he's going to put every employee of the FBI through "bias training"? [...] No bias, but everyone needs bias training. Gotcha. FBI Director: Chinese Espionage 'Most Significant' Spy Threat Facing US. China, rather than Russia, is the "most significant" long-term threat to the United States, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Wednesday [7/18/2018]. During an interview with NBC's Lester Holt at the Aspen Ideas Forum, Wray said that the FBI has economic espionage investigations in all 50 states that trace back to Chinese activity. "It covers everything from corn seeds in Iowa to wind turbines in Massachusetts and everything in between," said Wray. Most of the forum focused on the FBI's investigation of Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election and in other arenas. Wray's appearance comes in the wake of two significant indictments in Russia-related investigations. Rosenstein and Wray Squirm on the Hill. Rod Rosenstein and Christopher Wray went up to Capitol Hill on Thursday to tell the House Intelligence Committee that neither one of them had noticed anything wrong with Robert Mueller's special probe or with the anti-Trump bias of its staff. No matter what Congress and the public had read in the massive inspector general's report recently, they wanted everyone to know that the deputy attorney general and the FBI director had the Bureau under control now, and that Rosenstein had Wray and Mueller under control, too. Everything is fine. Nothing to see here. Couldn't Congress just leave them alone? Sara Carter Blasts Rosenstein, Wray. Investigative reporter Sara Carter blasted the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray on 'Hannity' after their testimony yesterday. They "undermined the American people," she said. "They really believe that these guys that think they were better, smarter and they think they are the super patriots and we the people are stupid," Hannity blasted FBI investigators in discussing Thursday's [6/28/2018] contentious hearing in which Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray faced lawmakers demanding answers. Rosenstein seemed to think the entire event was humorous because he did a lot of smirking. Wray is arrogant as well. "They undermined the American people. They undermined the system that our nation is founded on," Carter said. "There is nothing more disgusting than thinking that you know everything," Carter continued. FBI head proves Washington has a vendetta against Trump. As FBI Director Christopher Wray started giving his response to the blistering report on the Hillary Clinton investigation, I hoped he would accept the findings as proof that the agency lost its way and must be shaken to its foundation. By the time he finished talking, I felt naive for daring to hope. Wray's performance was worse than disappointing. It was infuriating proof that it will take more than one election to change the corrupt culture of Washington. Wray replaced the ousted James Comey, whose conduct in the Clinton probe was shredded by Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Investigators demonstrated with new details that the self-righteous Comey was insubordinate and duplicitous, and even used private email for government business while he investigated Clinton over her private, unsecured server. Talk about arrogance. How can FBI Director Wray clean out the swamp if he doesn't even see the corruption? FBI Director Wray has said nothing to reassure Americans that he understands the serious corruption highlighted in the IG report. The FBI's cover-ups and stonewalling on Wray's watch add to his credibility problems. Both in is his press conference after the IG report was released, and in his testimony Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Director Wray demonstrated he was more concerned about protecting the reputation of the institution of the FBI than about the astonishing corruption of top FBI officials detailed in the IG report. During today's hearing we heard about FBI agents who aren't corrupt and how the Clinton email investigation was just one of many thousands of cases pursued by the Bureau. Impeach Rod Rosenstein. An impeachment that removed either Mr. Rosenstein or Mr. Wray — or a contempt finding that sent one of them to the congressional pokey for a spell — could send a good message to federal bureaucrats inclined to be dismissive of congressional subpoenas. Then again, if either man thought he was in real and imminent danger of being impeached or held in contempt, Congress would likely find him instantly cooperative. Jeff Sessions and Christopher Wray Suffering From Severe Battered Institutional Syndrome. For about eight months columnist Andrew McCarthy appeared on television and wrote dozens of articles about the slow-drip of information stemming from the Trump-Russia probe and the IG Horowitz investigation. Almost all of the articles were sympathetic to the institutions being challenged. However, in mid-May a funny thing happened. The weekend before May 15th McCarthy actually broke down and read the six-month-old Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text messages he had been delivering opinion on; and guess what happened? Yup, his perspective changed within a period of 36-hours, and with it — a radical shift in tone and delivery. The Deep State is Winning. In a tour de force press conference, current FBI Director Christopher Wray insisted the report was thorough and that, "Nothing in [the IG report] impugns the integrity of our workforce as a whole, or the FBI as an institution." That wasn't the issue, problem, or concern. Very few people have questioned the mission of the FBI or its "workforce as a whole." But at least some in the workforce should be questioned, possibly impugned, and maybe even sanctioned. Unfortunately, Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report makes any such consequences unlikely. As a result, the destabilization of America's republic at the hands of faceless, partisan bureaucrats will continue apace even as the fight to topple President Trump escalates. FBI head proves Washington has a vendetta against Trump. As FBI Director Christopher Wray started giving his response to the blistering report on the Hillary Clinton investigation, I hoped he would accept the findings as proof that the agency lost its way and must be shaken to its foundation. By the time he finished talking, I felt naive for daring to hope. Wray's performance was worse than disappointing. It was infuriating proof that it will take more than one election to change the corrupt culture of Washington. No Wray of Sunshine. FBI Director Christopher Wray's explanation of Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report on the handling of Hillary Clinton's emails revealed him to be just another deep-state shill willing to ignore the attempted and ongoing deep-state coup against a duly elected president, Donald J. Trump. Regarding the organized attempt to by FBI leadership to keep Hillary Clinton out of prison and Donald Trump out of the White House, Wray sees no evil, hears no evil, and will speak no evil. Christopher Wray Not the Man to 'Proudly' Fix the FBI. What was going on in Donald Trump's head when he tweeted Friday in response to the inspector general's devastating report on the FBI that "Christopher Wray will bring it proudly back!"? Perhaps the president thought he had better things to do than face another interminable nomination battle for a new director. Or perhaps he was trying to co-opt Wray. But if the FBI is meant to come back, proudly or otherwise, Christopher Wray is not the man. He is part of the problem. Sen. Tom Cotton Asks FBI Director Wray if Dossier Author Was Employed by Putin-Linked Oligarch — Wray Won't Answer! Last week FOX News reported that Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), the top senator on the Senate Intelligence Committee, was caught communicating with a lobbyist for Putin-linked Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Senator Warner reached out to the lobbyist linked to Deripaska because he wanted to speak with Fusion GPS dossier author Christopher Steele. Senator Warner communicated with an phone app that deletes all messages. Here's how FBI Director Christopher Wray's independence protects Trump from Robert Mueller. While President Trump and FBI Director Christopher Wray aren't happy with one another, Trump's appointment of Wray has never been more personally valuable to the president. Why? By showing independence from the White House and resisting Trump's pressure on the FBI, Wray is confirming that Trump made a good and prudent decision in appointing him as director. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Robert Mueller and Tony Podesta This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. Jerome Corsi Corsi Vows to Make Mueller Pay, Alleging Prosecutorial Misconduct. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has concluded — finally, after two years — his probe into whether President Donald Trump or any member of his campaign team colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. Millions of Americans believe the investigation was politically driven, doing great damage to the country itself, and in the process destroyed the lives of innocent Americans in what Trump has called a "witch hunt." One of those persecuted by Mueller during the seemingly never-ending investigation — Jerome Corsi, a best-selling author and noted political commentator — has opted to continue his legal fight against Mueller and his fellow prosecutors, with a bar complaint and a $350 million lawsuit. "They have to pay for this," Corsi told the Washington Examiner on Monday [3/25/2019]. During the probe, Mueller's team insisted that Corsi plead guilty to lying to investigators, but he refused. Mueller's Lawyer and Jerome Corsi Trade Blistering Attacks in Dueling Court Filings. The federal government is pushing back against efforts by right-wing conspiracy theorist and author Jerome Corsi to have his lawsuit against special counsel Robert Mueller and others assigned to U.S. District Judge Richard Leon. As Law&Crime previously reported, Corsi is suing Mueller and several other federal government defendants for $350 million over allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, leaking confidential grand jury information by way of special counsel press officer Peter Carr — and for "ongoing illegal, unconstitutional surveillance" of Corsi "at the direction of Mueller and his partisan Democrat, leftist, and ethically and legally conflicted prosecutorial staff." Corsi sues Mueller over alleged grand jury leaks, seeks $350M in damages: report. Jerome Corsi, the conservative author accused of lying under oath to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigators, filed a federal lawsuit late Sunday [12/9/2018] accusing Mueller of leaking grand jury items and various constitutional violations, including illegal surveillance, reports said. Politico reported that the newly filed suit claims that Mueller tried to get Corsi to give testimony that Corsi said is false. He is reportedly seeking $100 million in actual damages and $250 million in damages due to injury to his reputation. The CIA, FBI, and the National Security Agency were also named in the suit. Jerome Corsi Challenges Robert Mueller. Misconduct by the once-great Department of Justice is all too common. The unethical prosecution of former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens stole a U.S. Senate election from the Republicans in 2008. That earned a tongue-lashing from Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on April 7, 2009. But left-wing embeds within the DoJ took the wrong lessons from the Stevens fiasco. They took it as a dry run, practice for stealing the presidential election in 2016. What is the DoJ claiming now? That Jerry Corsi and Roger Stone must have been the conduit for a Russian conspiracy because they "knew" — after it was widely reported in the news media — that Wikileaks would release stolen documents that Wikileaks told the entire world way in advance it was going to release. Jerome Corsi files ethics complaint against Mueller, claims he was pressured to lie. Conservative author Jerome Corsi on Monday filed a criminal and ethics complaint against special counsel Robert Mueller alleging prosecutorial misconduct in the Russia investigation. The 78-page complaint alleges that Mr. Corsi "has been criminally threatened and coerced to tell a lie and call it the truth." For the crime of forgetting, Jerome Corsi is facing bankruptcy and imprisonment. Jerome Corsi is 72-years-old. He has a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard. He has written two New York Times bestsellers about politics. He is the kind of person who could, and probably should be happily retired by now. Instead, he's facing felony charges from Robert Mueller. How did this happen? America Take Note - Dr. Jerome Corsi Is NOT Suicidal. Dr. Corsi is a Harvard educated Ph.D., a well-known investigative journalist and a prolific author. He has authored 20 books since 2004, including two New York Times bestsellers. It is interesting to note that the information contained in one book in particular, written by Dr. Corsi and published on May 17, 2011 titled Where's The Birth Certificate? would apparently become relevant to the questioning he was forced to endure by Aaaron Zelinsky, one of Robert Mueller's "angry Democrats" and not coincidentally, a former assistant US attorney under Rod Rosenstein. Also lacking in coincidence, perhaps, is that Zelinsky is a staunch Democrat and a frequent contributor to the Leftist publication Huffington Post. In addition to Aaron Zelinsky, Dr. Corsi was subjected to interrogation, ridicule and was even mocked as detailed in a recent hit piece published in The Rolling Stone by Jeannie Rhee, a former Deputy Attorney General under Obama and a die-hard Hillary Clinton supporter. Even more disturbing and ironic is that Rhee was Hillary Clinton's lawyer just three years ago, representing her in her legal e-mail troubles. Feds Treated Sammy 'The Bull' Gravano Much Better Than Manafort, Corsi, Flynn. [Sean] Hannity said special counsel Robert Mueller is conducting a "concerted effort to turn the screws on whoever" is in support of Trump. He said Flynn's life is "ruined," Papadopoulos will forever have a felony on his record and Manafort and Corsi could spend the rest of their lives in prison because they will not be coerced into "testi-lying." Hannity said that on the other hand, Gravano, who he said confessed to at least 19 murders, was given little jail time and was put in the witness protection program and was living in Arizona. The Nixon 'Road Map' Won't Save Mueller's Futile Prosecution. [Scroll down] The copycat litigation of the Trump-haters today is of no significance. But the increasing evidence of the Mueller special counsel's tug-of-war to try to extort perjury against the president by effectively threatening Paul Manafort with decades of solitary confinement, and trying to intimidate Jerome Corsi, George Papadopoulos (a third of the way through his 14-day prison term — it was to such nonsense that Mueller is reduced), is cautionary. [...] At least there was a crime at the Watergate and a few other places. But both attempts at pseudo-legal putsches are and have been disgusting and profoundly illegal corruptions of the system, and contribute to an understanding of why the American prosecutors win a North Korean level 99 percent of their indictments, 97 percent without a trial, and the sweet land of liberty has six to 12 times as many incarcerated people per capita as comparable large and prosperous democracies: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The word 'Russia' eliminates all rational thought in journalists. After two long years of the most expensive and wide-ranging independent counsel investigation in a generation, we should be close to nabbing those dastardly secret agents from Russia who supposedly hacked our presidential election. Are we? No, we're not. Robert Mueller's prosecutors are instead threatening elderly men with life in prison for petty crimes. Crimes that have nothing to do with spying or Russia or anything else that threatens America. The whole thing is a grotesque joke. But you'd never know that from watching cable television. Jerome Corsi Says He Has Defense Agreement With Trump, Received Limited Immunity From Mueller. Right-wing author Jerome Corsi claims in a forthcoming book that he has a joint defense agreement with President Donald Trump and was provided limited immunity during his testimony before special counsel Robert Mueller's grand jury to discuss a "cover story" he claims he crafted for Trump confidant Roger Stone. Corsi, who has been interviewed six times in the investigation over the course of more than two months, writes in "Silent No More: How I Became a Political Prisoner of Mueller's 'Witch Hunt,'" which The Daily Caller News Foundation obtained, that he entered into the defense agreement with Trump after being advised that Trump's lawyer, Jay Sekulow, was interested in the arrangement. George Papadopoulos Declassified FBI memos undercut Mueller team claims that Papadopoulos hindered Russia probe. Newly declassified FBI memos directly conflict with court filings that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team made in asking a federal judge to send former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos to prison, further calling into question the government's conduct in investigating the now-debunked "Russia collusion" narrative. The memos, released under federal Freedom of Information laws, are likely to focus renewed attention on former Mueller prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky, who played a key role in prosecuting Papadopoulos before working on the case of longtime GOP operative and Trump confidant Roger Stone. Federal Judge Denies Papadopoulos Delay — Begins 14-Day Federal Prison Sentence Tomorrow. Federal Judge Randolph Moss denies a sentencing delay for George Papadopoulos and instructs him to report to federal prison in Wisconsin on Monday; Papadopoulos will serve a 14-day sentence for 'lying' to federal investigators. The Judge rejected Papadopoulos request to delay his sentence while the legitimacy of Mueller's probe is being challenged in a separate legal case. Could Papadopoulos Blow the Russia Hoax Wide Open? Dan Bongino recently conducted a fascinating interview with George Papadopoulos. The most convenient way to digest the interview is at Jeff Carlson's blog, which has a link to the interview on Bongino's radio show as well as a full transcript of the interview. What emerges from the interview is, in my view, convincing evidence that Papadopoulos was, in Chuck Ross's words, the target of an "FBI sting." Actually, that characterization doesn't even go far enough. What seems clear at this point is that the FBI — representing the US Government and as an agency of the Department of Justice — targeted Papadopoulos and attempted to manipulate him into appearing to be a vehicle for Russian influence in the Trump campaign. The FBI had no reason to believe that Papadopoulos had any connections to Russian officials before they targeted him. The fact is, Papadopoulos's academic background and previous experience was in what could be broadly termed "Eastern Mediterranean" politics — Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Israel. Moreover, in his published writings he actually evinced a degree of hostility to Russian influence in that region. When the FBI's attempt at framing Papadopoulos in this manner predictably fell flat, Papadopoulos was indicted on trumped up "false statements to the FBI" charges stemming from a harmless misstatement — not a lie. Claiming He Was 'Framed,' Papadopoulos Says He Might Scrap Plea Deal With Mueller. Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos said Friday that he is considering withdrawing from a plea agreement he has had for over a year with the special counsel's office. In an interview with "Fox & Friends," the 31-year-old Papadopoulos asserted he was "framed" by Western intelligence agencies, including those within the U.S. government. "I believe there was tremendous misconduct on the government's behalf regarding my case," Papadopoulos said in the interview. "And given certain information I learned yesterday that I can't publicly disclose right now, I'm actually even considering withdrawing my agreement I have come to with the government." FBI Has Evidence That 'Directly Refutes' Entire Premise Of Trump-Russia Probe, GOP Rep. Says. Republican lawmakers have hinted for months that the FBI failed to provide federal judges on the surveillance court with information that undercut the government's premise for opening the Trump-Russia probe in 2016. Republicans have suggested in interviews that the information related to George Papadopoulos, the former Trump campaign adviser whose conversation with an Australian diplomat prompted the FBI to open its investigation into the Trump campaign. Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe provided Sunday the clearest picture to date of what the FBI allegedly withheld from the surveillance court. Ratcliffe suggested that the FBI failed to include evidence regarding former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, in an interview with Fox News. No end in sight: Russia dossier investigation enters third year. FBI agent Peter Strzok, who displayed an intense dislike for Mr. Trump in text messages to his lover, started the investigation based on hearsay from an Australian diplomat who shared a drink in London with Trump campaign volunteer George Papadopoulos. To date, after wiretaps and multiple interrogations, no Trump person has been charged for the reason the investigation started: Did the campaign coordinate with Moscow to interfere in the election? The drink in London may have started the inquiry, but it was the Democratic Party-orchestrated dossier that would fuel it with an unsubstantiated tale of an "extensive conspiracy" between Mr. Trump and the Kremlin. What really inspired the FBI to spring into action against Trump in 2016? To hear the Federal Bureau of Investigation tell it, its decision to launch a counterintelligence probe into a major-party presidential campaign comes down to a foreign tip about a 28-year-old fourth-tier Trump adviser, George Papadopoulos. The FBI's media scribes have dutifully reported the bare facts of that "intel." We are told the infamous tip came from Alexander Downer, at the time the Australian ambassador to the U.K. Mr. Downer invited Mr. Papadopoulos for a drink in early May 2016, where the aide told the ambassador the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Word of this encounter at some point reached the FBI, inspiring it to launch its counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign on July 31. The "Crossfire Hurricane" Story Paints An Ugly Picture Of The FBI And Department Of Justice. A couple of days ago, the New York Times ran a rather stunning piece on FBI surveillance of the Trump campaign. [...] This is the basic outline of the story. The FBI, based on a semi-drunken conversation between George Papadopoulos and an Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, opened an investigation of the Trump campaign. What is missing from the story is any mention of the Trump dossier which we know was briefed to the FBI on July 5, nearly a month before the Papadopoulos conversation jumped the Atlantic and the shark. As the investigation grew, eventually four members of the Trump campaign — Michael T. Flynn, Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Papadopoulos — were placed under some sort of surveillance. Eventually, Carter Page was the subject of a FISA warrant. This surveillance continued even while Flynn and Manafort were on the transition team. Threatening legal fight, Nunes demands document that kicked off FBI Trump-Russia investigation. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray demanding an uncensored copy of the document the bureau used to formally begin its investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and Trump campaign. The originating document has been the subject of much controversy. After some Republicans alleged that the FBI used never-verified parts of the Trump dossier as part of its reason to begin the investigation in July 2016, some "current and former" officials leaked to the New York Times that no, it was the case of George Papadopoulos, reported to U.S. authorities by foreign intelligence agents, that prompted the FBI investigation. Report: FBI Agent Shared Russia Probe Information With Christopher Steele. An FBI agent shared the name of former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos with Trump dossier author Christopher Steele during a meeting in early October 2016. That new bit of information was revealed in a column published Wednesday [1/17/2018] by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. Ignatius reports that Steele, a former MI6 agent, met with an old FBI contact in Rome around Oct. 1, 2016 to share findings from his investigation into Donald Trump's and the Trump campaign's associations with the Russian government. "At this meeting, the FBI official asked Steele if he had ever heard of Papadopoulos," reports Ignatius, who cited an official familiar with the meeting as his source. Ron DeSantis: NYT Papadopoulos 'Russia Probe' Claim Not What FBI and DOJ Told Congressional Investigators. Florida Representative and Judicary Committee member Ron DeSantis appears on Sunday Morning Futures and deconstructs the leaked intelligence community propaganda pushed by the New York Times. Essentially DeSantis states the claims surrounding the origin of the 2016 Russian Probe, made by the leaked intelligence sources, does not align with the sworn congressional testimony given by the FBI and DOJ to the judiciary committee. James Clapper Clapper stammers through segment after launch of DOJ criminal probe. Obama's former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper seemed to struggle with his poker face as he reacted to news of a DOJ criminal inquiry. The current CNN contributor spoke with Anderson Cooper about reports of the transition of U.S. Attorney John Durham's review into the origins of the Russia probe into a criminal investigation. And his body language spoke louder than his words. [Video clip] Proceed With Caution — Media Reporting ODNI Dan Coats Possibly Being Replaced. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ODNI, was created post-9/11 at the recommendation of the 9/11 commission. [...] Due to the structure of the ODNI, the cabinet member filling that position has an important role in: (a) knowing what each intelligence agency is doing; and (b) sharing intelligence operations and outcomes, beyond the originating agency, to those national security offices who may have an operational need/interest in cross-agency information. President Obama saw the ODNI structure as a problem. The ODNI would know what each agency is doing. The structure of the ODNI means corrupt CIA, State, DoD and/or DOJ and FBI cabinet officials couldn't keep secret intelligence operations hidden from review by alternate officials. The structure of the ODNI was a risk. President Obama together with Donilon, Holder, Emmanuel and Jarret, solved this problem early on by placing an abject idiot named James Clapper into the position of ODNI. Why Are Clapper and Brennan Not in Jail? Beginning in January 2017, Brennan and Clapper made essentially the same statements on national television. The only possible excuse — that their allegations were lies — is irrelevant because the essence of the violation is the revelation that U.S intelligence was monitoring the communications of the Russians in America, and those of the Trump campaign as well. This is true, and that revelation is a textbook violation of the Comint Statute. The reasons no prosecutions have followed should be plain enough. The offenders are big people, in the permanent government and in the Democratic Party. They have a great many friends in the U.S Justice Department. From the top down, the Trump Administration has been filled by much smaller people. Loud words aside, the president has kowtowed to the intelligence agencies in every way imaginable. No prominent Republican has chosen to challenge the de facto privileged relationship between Democrats in the intelligence agencies and the media. The Adolescent Progressive Mind. Former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper became a beloved progressive duo to the extent that their names almost became a compound noun. And no wonder given their recent careers were joined at the hip. Their past respective lying under oath to Congress, their previous incarnation as Bush-era "conservatives," tough-guy, anti-terrorism fighters, and their dubious employment in the suspect intelligence services were all forgotten. Then, after leaving the Obama Administration, in which Brennan-Clapper had in deep-state fashion reinvented themselves from erstwhile pro-Bush, enhanced interrogation, anti-terrorism fighters into anti-Bush, pro-Obama multiculturalists and deep thinkers, they reappeared in a third manifestation as CNN and MSNBC bona fide Trump haters. Daily we heard from the duo (who had once respectively assured us that jihad was essentially a personal growth odyssey and that Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was largely secular) that Trump was a Russian asset and a veritable traitor. James Clapper Knew There Was No Evidence of Trump-Russia Collusion In 2016. Long before the special counsel probe ended in confirming there was no collusion between President Trump and Russia, the U.S. government knew there was no evidence of a vast conspiracy between Trump and a foreign power. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate "ties between President Trump's campaign and Russian officials" on May 17, 2017. President Obama's director of national intelligence James Clapper had access and was privy to all the "evidence" the U.S. government collected since the Russia investigation began in July 2016. Clapper: Mueller couldn't find 'active collusion' but there was 'passive collusion'. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Thursday [4/18/2019] said that there was "passive collusion" between the Trump campaign and Russia despite Special Counsel Robert Mueller's findings that conclude there was no conspiracy. Clapper began by defending the foundation of the Russia probe, telling CNN anchor Anderson Cooper that there was "good reason" for intelligence agencies and law enforcement "to be concerned about whether or not there was some kind of conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians." Deliberate Destruction of Our Constitutional Norms: The Mueller Report. [Scroll down] The entire attempt was just a pursuit to derail a Republican president. The reason this activity was not more pervasive during George W. Bush's presidency is because it was halted by 9/11. Both presidents are perceived by their political enemies to be illegitimately elected because they won the Electoral College, but not the popular vote. The opposition has distain for the Constitution. That we are a Republic and not a Democracy cements their lack of acceptance for either president. The opposition also hates the politics of both presidents. [...] If you doubt that Obama created this atmosphere, just look at two people during the last two years — James Clapper and John Brennan. Mr. Clapper was the Director of National Intelligence and Mr. Brennan was the Director of the CIA under President Obama. These are supposed to be non-political posts, but during this episode these two added more fuel to the flame of the Russia Hoax than anyone else. Can We Give James Clapper The Roger Stone Treatment Yet? On March 12, 2013, Gen. James R. Clapper, Jr., President Obama's director of the Office Of National Intelligence, testified under oath before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Responding to a question from Oregon Sen. Ron Wyder on whether the U.S. government was collecting "any type of data at all" from American citizens, Clapper paused and said, "No, sir. ... Not wittingly." Three months later, when Edward Snowden dumped millions of stolen government documents into the public domain, it became abundantly clear that Clapper lied. The U.S. government was, in fact, vacuuming up details about virtually every electronic communication by every American citizen. When asked directly about his answer to Wyden, Clapper said that his response was "the least untruthful" answer he could give. The Transparent Positioning of Brennan, Clapper and Comey. There is a great deal of discussion about the combative and hate-riddled language coming from Comey, Clapper and particularly Brennan. Be aware their combative posture as an actual risk avoidance strategy. Each of the three heavily corrupt officials engaged in the most substantive abuse of their intelligence positions for political purposes. Each of them weaponized their offices against their political opposition. The scope and severity therein is a story yet to surface; and unlike prior examples of weaponizing the DOJ and IRS, there is no administration in place to protect them from investigative sunlight. Therefore the Comey, Clapper and Brennan defense strategy is to position themselves politically and lean on their like-minded media allies for support. All of James Comey's lies, detailed and exposed in 7 minutes. The takeaway from James Comey's ABC News interview is that he never should have been FBI director because he is completely partisan. POTUS Trump's mistake was that he waited to fire James Comey. He should have been fired immediately after Trump's Inauguration Day. Comey's hero is James Clapper... a man who perjured himself by lying to Congress nearly five years ago. Comey's family are die hard Hillary fans, with his wife even working for the HRC campaign. The McCabe Report is Just an Appetizer. As of this writing, it is unclear exactly what the scope of the inspector general's inquiries will be. Speaking for myself, I hope the desert course includes a close look at the January 5, 2017 meeting at the White House meeting at which President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, NSA director Susan "By the Book" Rice, and Acting Attorney General Sally "Insubordinate" Yates were briefed by the country's chief spooks — former FBI director James "Higher Loyalty" Comey, NSA chief Michael Rogers, CIA chief John "I Voted for Gus Hall" Brennan, and James Clapper, the former director of National Intelligence who delighted the television audiences everywhere when he instructed Congress that the Muslim Brotherhood was "a largely secular organization" that had "eschewed violence." The country was in the very best of hands back then! What was the subject? Exactly what they were and were not going to tell the incoming administration about the ongoing investigation into possible Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election? Anatomy of a Political Smear Confirmed — James Comey January Briefing was Scripted by Clapper and Brennan to Create Media Narrative. Generally I would not refer so strongly to a prior discussion thread if the latest information did not absolutely confirm what was originally suspected. On January 10th, 2017 we discussed "The Anatomy of a Modern Political Smear", where we connected the dots, as they were happening in-real-time between James Comey, the Obama intelligence community and the media, specifically CNN. Yesterday [4/19/2018], two events happened which absolutely confirm — with demonstrable certainty — what we immediately saw over 15 months ago. The first event was the appearance of James Comey on CNN to discuss his book. In part of the questioning by Jake Tapper, Comey admitted his January 6th briefing of the Steele Dossier content was ONLY about the Russian hookers, pee-tapes, and ridiculous sexual accusations against the President-elect. Did Obama, Brennan And Clinton Illegally Collude To Take Trump Down? The release of the FISA application by the FBI to investigate alleged collusion between Russia and President Trump's campaign and recent comments made by top officials are eye opening. Not only did President Obama know about the investigation, he seems to have pushed it from the very beginning. But don't take our word for it. Here's what Obama's Director of National Intelligence, the nation's former spy master, James Clapper, told CNN's Anderson Cooper: "If it weren't for President Obama we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set up a whole sequence of event which are still unfolding today, including Special Counsel (Robert) Mueller's investigation. President Obama is responsible for that. It was he who tasked us to do that intelligence community assessment in the first place." McCabe-Page texts reveal high-level intel meeting after 2016 election. Newly obtained text messages between former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and bureau lawyer Lisa Page reveal a high-level meeting among senior intelligence officials was held weeks before President Trump's inauguration — during a critical period for the Russia probe. In a Dec. 12, 2016, text reviewed by Fox News, Page wrote to McCabe: "Btw, [Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper told Pete that he was meeting with [CIA Director John] Brennan and Cohen for dinner tonight. Just FYSA [for your situational awareness]." The Democrats' Fanaticism. The Democrats, the media, and their sympathizers around the world were so sure that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report would quickly end Donald Trump's presidency that they are still in denial that it won't. Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, coined a new oxymoron by insisting there was "passive collusion" between Trump and the Russians. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff still insists that evidence of collusion is still in plain sight and Rachel Maddow is still in tears. None of the facts will deter the Democrats from investigating and trying to impeach Trump because their Trump hatred is so deep and so emotional that it has become a fanaticism that wipes everything else off the political slate. What Everyone Is Missing About the Comey Scandal. [Scroll down] However, despite [James] Clapper's earnest worry and woe, the FBI is not a co-equal branch of government able to "check and balance" the executive branch. Despite James Comey's defense of the FBI's independence at his hearing yesterday, there is no constitutional requirement that the FBI be independent of the presidency. Comey even admitted as much amid his defense of FBI independence. More about General Clapper's days with the Obama administration can be found here. Michael Flynn This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. Bill Priestap FBI Man's Testimony Points to Wrongdoing Well Beyond Spying. Attorney General William Barr shocked official Washington Wednesday [4/10/2019] by saying what previously couldn't be said: That the counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign in 2016 involved "spying." The spying, which Barr vowed to investigate, is not the only significant possible violation of investigative rules and ethics committed by agents, lawyers, managers, and officials at the FBI and the Department of Justice. A catalogue of those abuses can be found in recently released testimony that ex-FBI official Edward William Priestap provided to Congress in a closed-door interview last summer. FBI Man's Testimony Points to Wrongdoing Well Beyond Spying. From the end of 2015 to the end of 2018, Bill Priestap was assistant director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, which meant he oversaw the FBI's global counterintelligence efforts. In that role, he managed both of the bureau's most politically sensitive investigations: the inquiry into Hillary Clinton's handling of classified information and the probe into whether Donald Trump or his campaign conspired with Russia to steal the 2016 presidential election. His testimony provides rare insight into the attitudes and thoughts of officials who launched the Russia probe and the probe of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose final report is expected to be released very soon. More important, his testimony contains extensive indications of wrongdoing, including that the FBI and DoJ targeted Trump and did so with information it made no effort to verify. It paints a portrait of the Obama-era bureau as one that was unconcerned with political interference in investigations and was willing to enlist the help of close foreign allies to bring down its target. The Enigma Man — E.W. "Bill" Priestap. Bill Priestap is the FBI Asst. Director in charge of all counterintelligence operations. Priestap was FBI Agent Peter Strzok's boss; he is also at the epicenter of the story surrounding every action taken by the FBI in the Clinton investigation and the Trump campaign investigation. Bill Priestap was copied on every email of consequence including the writing of the Clinton exoneration talking points delivered by FBI Director James Comey. Priestap is the central figure on the FBI side of both Clinton and Trump operations. "Bill" is mentioned in hundreds of text messages sent by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. In short, Bill is everywhere — except where you would most likely expect to find him, in media discussion. FBI Shadow Figure Surfaces To Protect President Obama Amid Released FBI Text Messages. W.H. "Bill" Priestap is the FBI Head of Counterintelligence. Priestap was one of the first FBI officials who caught our attention (spring of 2017) because FBI Director James Comey mysteriously pointed a finger upon him during testimony to congress on March 20th, 2017 [Although Comey didn't use Bill Priestap's name, only his position]. James Comey said last year the reason the FBI did not inform congress of the ongoing eight month counterintelligence investigation (required by congressional intelligence oversight), which began in July 2016 into candidate Donald Trump, was because Bill Priestap specifically told Director Comey not to inform congress or intelligence oversight. A Counterintelligence Timeline With a Bill Priestap and James Comey Reminder. In the past few days/weeks, thanks to some revealing information amid the various investigators of the DC swamp, we have been introduced to some previously unknown people. Names like FBI Agent Peter Strzok; his mistress FBI Attorney Lisa Page; their ideological comrade Asst FBI Director Andrew McCabe; along with DOJ Deputy Bruce Ohr; and his wife, Fusion-GPS contract employee Nellie Ohr. Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson and his wife Mary Jacoby. These are a few of the recent names that have hit the headlines as a result of ongoing investigations into the politicization of the FBI and DOJ. But there's one name conspicuously absent, FBI Director of Counterintelligence, Bill Priestap. Another Leaked Transcript: Bill Priestap "Closed" Testimony Conflicts With James Comey "Open" Testimony. Another unsourced leak of a congressional hearing transcript to The Epoch Times highlights the testimony of former FBI Director of Counterintelligence, Bill Priestap. Unfortunately, the transcript is not provided, and there is no explanation as to why the transcript is not provided; however, one quote seems interesting. The question surrounds why congressional leadership, including the Gang-of-Eight, were not briefed about the opening of a counterintelligence operation into a presidential campaign. The investigation began on July 31st, 2016. Congress was not notified until early March 2017. Strzok-Page affair made them vulnerable to foreign intelligence, a top FBI official told Congress. A top FBI official told Congress last year that he feared an affair between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page made them vulnerable to foreign intelligence services. Bill Priestap, the bureau's assistant director for counterintelligence, testified in June 2018 that he had heard rumors about an extramarital affair between Page and Strzok, who directly reported to him, but was later prompted to confront the couple after receiving a tip. Demoted FBI agent Peter Strzok had larger role in Clinton, Russia probes than previously known. Peter Strzok, who was pulled off Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigative team last year, played a more central role than previously known in both the Russia and Hillary Clinton email probes, a lawmaker familiar with the matter told Fox News Tuesday [6/5/2018]. The lawmaker's assessment of Strzok's role in both investigations was based on the most recent records and testimony, including a closed-door interview with FBI espionage chief Bill Priestap. Priestap was interviewed Tuesday as part of an ongoing joint investigation by the House Judiciary and Oversight committees. Priestap was Strzok's supervisor and oversaw both the Russia and Clinton investigations. Devin Nunes Questions Legality of FBI FISA Application to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. This evening House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes sends a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions questioning the protocol and legality of a fraudulent FISA application submitted by the FBI. This approach sets up AG Sessions to defer the legal framework to OIG Michael Horowitz, and establishes the public basis for parallel prosecutors within the DOJ. However, keep in mind, it's extremely likely, almost certain, these prosecutors already exist — they are already working with Horowitz. Evidence of this is found in the memo quotes from Bill Priestap, but those not following the granular details are unaware. Professor Joseph Mifsud Curiouser and Curiouser. According to recent reports U.S. Attorney John Durham and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr are spending time on a narrowed focus looking carefully at CIA activity in the 2016 presidential election. [...] By now people are familiar with the construct of CIA operations involving Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese professor now generally admitted/identified as a western intelligence operative who was tasked by the CIA (John Brennan) to run an operation against Trump campaign official George Papadopoulos in both Italy (Rome) and London. In a similar fashion the CIA tasked U.S. intelligence asset Stefan Halper to target another Trump campaign official, Carter Page. Under the auspices of being a Cambridge Professor Stefan Halper also targeted General Michael Flynn. Additionally, using assistance from a female FBI agent under the false name Azra Turk, Halper also targeted Papadopoulos. Durham opens criminal probe, IG report due, Brennan, Clapper lawyer up. The John Durham investigation into the origins of the Russia Hoax has expanded. Adding staff and resources, and the investigation is now an official criminal probe. [...] The investigations course change follows new conclusive evidence Durham and Attorney General William Barr found during meetings in Rome on August 15th and September 27th. They reportedly met with Italian intelligence officials[.] During the meetings Durham and Horowitz listed to a taped deposition with the mysterious Professor Joseph Mifsud, the CIA and State Department asset who set up George Papadopolous. Their meeting in March 2016 started the ball rolling in the framing of Donald Trump and the Russia Hoax. Seeing Some Trees in the Forest of Babble. [Scroll down] I think otherwise. I think it was delayed because of newly acquired information obtained by Attorney General William Barr and Prosecutor John Durham. Most particularly, the two men recently returned from Italy where they met with the mysterious "Maltese professor" Joseph Mifsud and obtained from him two BlackBerrys. I believe that Mifsud was working with the coup plotters to set up a pretext for the spy operation and, if so, the BlackBerrys apparently given to him by them should prove the case. (We learned of their existence and the Justice Department's obtaining them in a motion filed by Lt. General Michael Flynn's attorney, Sidney Powell, demanding the data in them in the discovery process.) Papadopoulos says game-changing Mifsud phones are about to link his case and Mike Flynn's to treason. President Donald Trump's former 2016 campaign adviser George Papadopoulos is confident that the latest findings regarding the FBI operation that triggered the whole Russia collusion delusion narrative are surefire proof of "treason." Unearthed earlier this week, the findings are specifically that Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud wasn't a Russian agent — he was allegedly a "western intelligence" asset who was purposefully used by the Obama administration in 2016 to target both Papadopoulos and then-fellow Trump campaign adviser retired Gen. Michael Flynn. Asked by Fox News host Laura Ingraham late Friday [10/18/2019] to summarize these findings, Papadopoulos immediately spoke of "treason from within." Papadopoulos On The Big Picture Of The Russia Hoax. In this conversation with George Papadopoulos [...] Laura Ingraham starts with the news that John Durham returned from his trip to Rome with Bill Barr in possession of Joseph Mifsud's two FBI (or possibly CIA) issued Blackberry phones. Papadopoulos immediately turns to the big picture, rather than remaining with the investigative details regarding the phone, and Laura follows up on that big picture approach. Papadopoulos describes how, as soon as he joined the Ben Carson campaign in December, 2015, he found himself being targeted by State Department officials. He then notes that when he switched to the Trump campaign, just a few months later, he was targeted by intelligence operatives, including Mifsud, who already knew all about him even though his switch to the Trump campaign was not public knowledge. Obviously, he's telling us that the coordinated targeting of all Republican campaigns by the supposedly non-political branches of the Obama administration (State, DoJ, the FBI and CIA) was well underway — no later than December, 2015, but certainly even earlier. John Durham obtains key BlackBerrys connected to origins of Russia-Trump probe. Reading like the greatest spy novel ever written, leaving followers salivating over the next chapter, regardless of allegiance to the players involved, the targeting of then-candidate Donald Trump by the U.S. intelligence apparatus under former President Barack Obama just keeps getting better. Following special counsel Robert Mueller's findings that allegations of collusion between the president's campaign and Russia were little more than a hoax, Attorney General William Barr tasked John Durham, the U.S. Attorney in Connecticut, with investigating the investigators — in effect, to determine how Trump had become a target. On Thursday [10/17/2019], the Washington Times reported Durham has acquired two BlackBerrys used by Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud, who's intricately linked to the whole story. Why It Matters That Sidney Powell Wants Data From Joseph Mifsud's Smartphones. On Tuesday [10/15/2019], attorney Sidney Powell struck again, revealing yet another huge development in the Spygate saga between the lines of her latest motion. That motion, filed in the still-pending criminal case against Trump's former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, demanded exculpatory evidence from federal prosecutors. But unlike her previously filed motion to compel, here Powell seeks evidence "that has only recently come into its possession." And the evidence sought? The data and metadata from two Blackberry devices used by Joseph Mifsud. While Powell's latest motion barely equaled two pages, the implications are multi-pronged and monumental. That the U.S. government has only recently obtained possession of a pair of smartphones used by Joseph Mifsud tells us two things: that Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Dunham's probe into the origins of the Russia-collusion hoax is both serious and successful, and that the Crossfire Hurricane targeting of President Trump and former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation were neither. Mifsud's Cellphones Mean [the] Barr Investigation [is] Heating Up. While Democrats and their media friends natter on about impeachment and quid pro quos, trying to deflect from the the obvious corruption of Biden & Son and the imminent — at some point anyway — appearance of the IG report on FISA and the Steele Dossier — the real action, as it often is, is elsewhere. In this case, it is the surprising news that two cellphones belonging to Joseph Mifsud — the mysterious Maltese professor at the heart of the Russia probe (aka Spygate) — have suddenly materialized. The Joseph Mifsud Story: The Great Movie Hollywood Will Never Make. [Scroll down] If it turns out the professor was a U.S. agent or one allied to the U.S., planted to suck in the naive Papadopoulos, to make him run back to the mothership and blabber about something that wasn't true in order to hang Trump, it is one of the greatest and most evil stories of our times. If it can be proven that what we have experienced for the entire Trump era is a put-up job linked to the previous administration, to the Brennans and Clappers of the world, Professor Mifsud is the nerdy Helen of Troy who launched the thousand ships of the Mueller investigation, resulting in impeachment currently being shrieked on every corner and, frankly, mass U.S. hysteria and hatred across our land. DOJ Has Possession of Joseph Mifsud Cell Phones (Blackberries)? Inside an otherwise innocuous court filing, General Mike Flynn's attorney, Sidney Powell, files a motion to compel (MTC) in an effort to gain discovery of the content from two cell phones belonging to Joseph Mifsud. Apparently, according to the information within the filing, the DOJ has somehow gained custody of two cell phones belonging to Mr. Mifsud: [...] The filing notes that "western intelligence" likely tasked Mr. Mifsud against General Flynn as early as 2014 in order to set up "connections with certain Russians" for later use against him. Essentially, an intelligence entrapment scheme. Unfortunately the filing only identifies the cell phones along with the request for production of the content therein. However, the fact the DOJ has two cell phones belonging to Joseph Mifsud opens up a whole bunch of questions. Why the Mystery of Russiagate Hinges on the Mystery of Joseph Mifsud. For many, trying to follow Robert Mueller's testimony was like someone whose Italian is limited to grazie and ciao taking in an opera in Venice: You might grasp the action but sorting out the story through the lyrics is another thing altogether. The former special counsel was peppered with questions phrased in a shorthand of names — Veselnitskaya, Simpson, Kilimnik — each with a backstory it was assumed viewers, or at least the witness, would know. One of the most significant and dramatic — but also cryptic — exchanges occurred when Rep. Jim Jordan (R, Ohio) fired off a series of heated questions about a name few viewers are likely to have been familiar with: a Maltese professor invariably described as "mysterious," Joseph Mifsud. Rep. Devin Nunes Sends Letter to FBI, DOJ, CIA and NSA Requesting Info on Mysterious Prof. Mifsud. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) sent letters to the heads of the CIA, NSA, FBI and DOJ late Friday [5/3/2019] requesting information pertaining to the mysterious Maltese professor who allegedly told Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos that the Russians had thousands of Hillary Clinton's emails. Nunes told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo that he wants to "get to the bottom of [Joseph] Mifsud," whom the Mueller report paints as a Russian spy, (although he is more likely a Western asset). AG Barr's trip to Italy on 'official business' may be a key to unmasking deep state entrapment of George Papadopoulos by CIA asset Joseph Mifsud. Attorney General William Barr quietly flew off to Italy on official business on Wednesday, a move first noticed by ABC correspondent Alex Mallin on Friday, September 27. [...] Once the trip was on the public record, and only 15 minutes later, at 1:09 PM, George Papadopoulos tweeted out his view that the trip was related to Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese professor and CIA asset, who planted the information that the Russians had Hillary's missing emails in hand, information that Papadopoulos later passed along to the Australian High Commissioner (ambassador) to Britain, who then passed this information along to US intelligence authorities as evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Attorney General Bill Barr Visits Italy on "Official Business"? — Remember That Audio-Tape Deposition by Joseph Mifsud? According to an interview on August 18th, John Solomon reported the lawyer for Joseph Mifsud admitted his client was a western intelligence asset who was part of a CIA intelligence "operation" against candidate Donald Trump in March 2016. Not only was the attorney admitting Mifsud was a western asset used by the CIA against Trump, but the lawyer also told Solomon about an audio-taped deposition that Joseph Mifsud gave prior to going into hiding after Trump won the 2016 Presidential election. From the description it sounds like Mifsud anticipated his assisted suicide and he recorded a deposition as leverage against his unwanted demise. Assisted Suicide Avoidance — John Brennan Intel Asset Joseph Mifsud "Gave Audio Tape Deposition Before Going Into Hiding". According to an interview granted by the lawyer for intelligence asset Joseph Mifsud to journalist John Solomon, professor Mifsud admitted to being a western intelligence asset who was part of a CIA intelligence "operation" against candidate Donald Trump in March 2016. Yes, stop and read that introductory paragraph again. Solomon notes that an audio-taped deposition exists from Joseph Mifsud prior to going into hiding after the 2016 Presidential election. From the description it sounds like Mifsud anticipated his assisted suicide and recorded a deposition as leverage against his unwanted demise. McCabe and Papadopoulos: Two-Tiered Justice. The date of a meeting, that's all the lie was about. George Papadopoulos claimed that a meeting he'd had with the mysterious Maltese professor, Josef Mifsud, happened slightly before the green-as-grass 28-year-old was recruited into the Trump campaign. In reality, it was slightly after. It wasn't a very important lie. It was of no consequence to the FBI or the special counsel's investigation. Papadopoulos was such an afterthought that the Bureau did not bother to interview him until late January 2017 — about 10 months after he met Mifsud. By the time Papadopoulos was charged, the Trump-Russia investigation had been ongoing for well over a year — it was already clear that there was no conspiracy. The mysterious Mister Mifsud and why no one wants to discuss him. Joseph Mifsud: The name of the generally unknown character in the Russia investigation came up, over and over, in the long-awaited House committee hearings with former special counsel Robert Mueller. Republican Jim Jordan of Ohio invoked the name as if it legally required the accompaniment of horror movie theme music; Mueller immediately snapped back that he would not discuss that man. Yet that did not deter Republicans. Joe diGenova: Inspector General Horowitz and US Attorney John Durham Have Both Already interviewed Joseph Mifsud. Special Counsel Robert Mueller testified before Congress today on the Trump-Russia Collusion witch hunt. He could not have looked more confused and out of his league if he tried. It was a slow motion trainwreck. Mueller looked like a confused, stuttering, mumbling, lost, doddering and nervous old man. He frequently paged through his notes. Rep. Jim Jordan Exposes the Targeted Hypocrisy of Mueller's Team — Some Investigative Liars Ignored. Representative Jim Jordan highlights how the Mueller team avoided targeting the person at the very origin of the CIA, FBI and DOJ-NSD operation against the Trump campaign in 2016. By outlining the involvement of western intelligence asset Joseph Mifsud, and how the Mueller "small group" ignored his involvement, Jim Jordan exposes the biased agenda behind the entire Mueller scheme. [Video clip] Robert Mueller soon may be exposed as the 'magician of omission' on Russia. While most of the political world focused its attention elsewhere, special prosecutor John Durham's team quietly reached out this summer to a lawyer representing European academic Joseph Mifsud, one of the earliest and most mysterious figures in the now closed Russia-collusion case. An investigator told Swiss attorney Stephan Roh that Durham's team wanted to interview Mifsud, or at the very least review a recorded deposition the professor gave in summer 2018 about his role in the drama involving Donald Trump, Russia and the 2016 election. Durham and Graham obtained deposition of Clinton 'dirt' tipster Joseph Mifsud. U.S. Attorney John Durham and Sen. Lindsey Graham, leading separate inquiries into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, have obtained an audio deposition of Joseph Mifsud, the mysterious Maltese academic who claimed Russia had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. Congressional Investigators Looking at "Number of False Statements" Made by Mueller and Lies About Mifsud. As TGP reported earlier this week the Mueller report, produced by a gang of conflicted Hillary supporters, is full of holes and misrepresentations. One of the significant questions that comes out of the report was why Mueller and gang did not find it beneficial or important to identify the Steele dossier in its report. The dossier is barely mentioned in Mueller's report. Devin Nunes Outlines Three Key Issues Post Mueller Report — Also Confirms Mueller Blocked Key Document Production. In advance of the Mueller Report release, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, appears with Laura Ingraham to discuss three areas of the 2016 CIA/FBI intelligence operation that deserve answers: (1) The targeting/framing of Michael Flynn and the positioning of a false narrative around innocuous Russia contacts. (2) The use of Joseph Mifsud as an asset by the CIA/FBI running a counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign. (3) The Trump Tower meeting as organized by Fusion-GPS. If You Inspect The FISA Applications Closely, More Mysteries Arise About Joseph Mifsud. When CNN reported late Thursday [8/2/2018] that the president's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, intended to tell Special Counsel Robert Mueller that Donald Trump knew in advance of his son's June 2016 meeting with Russians who promised "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, the summer-time Trump Tower confab from two years ago re-entered the limelight. A quick retweet of the story by Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff, pushing what I knew was a false narrative, sent me tumbling down the rabbit hole known presidentially as Spygate. What began as a deep-dive into the Trump Tower meeting unearthed yet further proof of the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation's abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to surveil former Trump advisor Carter Page and revealed additional evidence implicating the State Department in targeting Trump. Robert Mueller's Russian Election Interference Indictments This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. Spoliation of evidence in the Robert Mueller investigation This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. Robert Mueller and his lengthy investigation This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. Mueller investigation report issued April 18, 2019: This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. Attorney General Barr Are We Witnessing The Coverup Of The Biggest Scandal In American History? The great puzzle thus far has been the lack of prosecutions, despite ample evidence. The FBI agents are all guilty of crimes that have been detailed in public documents and the IG reports. There is now proof that Comey perjured himself many times. Just from a public relations perspective alone, rounding up these guys and charging them with corruption seems like a no-brainer. Almost a year into his tenure and Barr has charged no one with a crime. One obvious explanation is that Barr is running a long con on Trump and the rest of the country, on behalf of the inner party. [...] The sheer number of people involved in just the FBI scandal is phenomenal. There are at least 20 FBI people named and dozens of bit players in the media and DOJ. So far, the "contractors" with access to the NSA database have not been revealed, but that could be hundreds of people, given that it seems to have been a free-for-all. Attorney General Barr Stands athwart History. [Scroll down] I'm sure I am also not alone in thinking that Attorney General Barr, with his recent speeches, is using his bully pulpit to lay the groundwork for shaping public understanding and support for drastic action that should result from those reports and that he is employing high-octane, carefully crafted rhetoric to prepare public opinion for the explosive, controversial revelations — i.e., possible judicial proceedings against high-ranking members of the Deep State in the CIA, the FBI, and the Obama administration, including such persons as Brennan, Clapper, Comey, and Rice. The speeches were one-two punches against the Democrat's (1) attacks on religious freedom that have resulted in cultural disintegration and (2) attacks on the Constitution that have resulted in political chaos. William Barr is asking questions the media don't want asked. "I'm amused," Attorney General William Barr told CBS News' Jan Crawford, "by these people who make a living disclosing classified information, including the names of intelligence operatives, wringing their hands about whether I'm going to be responsible in protecting intelligence sources and methods." He went on after further questions, "Well, the media reaction is strange. Normally the media would be interested in letting the sunshine in and finding out what the truth is. And usually the media doesn't care that much about protecting intelligence sources and methods. But I do and I will." A Side-by-Side Comparison of Barr's vs. Mueller's Statements about Special Counsel Report. This Chart compares Special Counsel Robert Mueller's May 29 public statement with statements made by Attorney General William Barr. Whether or not Mueller was intentionally trying to correct the record, the differences between what he and Barr said are, in many cases, stark. Some of the differences involve near complete contradictions — in other words Mueller's statement and Barr's statements cannot both be true. Other differences are more a matter of emphasis or tone (e.g., references to the threat posed by the Russian operations, descriptions of the qualities of the special counsel staff). Why Did The Obama Administration Ignore Reports Of Russian Election Meddling? During her hour-long interview last week of Attorney General William Barr, "CBS This Morning" journalist Jan Crawford focused mainly on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of President Trump. She also, however, questioned Barr on the Department of Justice's (DOJ) efforts to ensure that Russian attempts to interfere in our elections are not repeated in 2020. This revealed the attorney general is probing a second scandal of the Obama administration related to the 2016 presidential election. Or it would be regarded as a second scandal if it garnered more attention: Why the Obama administration failed to forcefully respond to intelligence of Russian interference in our elections. Schiff Says AG Barr Will Declassify Information 'In a Selective Way' to Mislead. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House intelligence committee, on Sunday discredited the investigation into the origins of the FBI's Trump-Russia probe, saying Attorney General William Barr will declassify intelligence "in a selective way designed to mislead the country." [...] Several months ago, Republicans on the House intelligence committee called on Schiff to step down as chairman for misleading people about evidence of "collusion" between the Trump campaign and Russia. "Your willingness to continue to promote a demonstrably false narrative is alarming," committee Republicans wrote in their letter to Schiff. Attorney General Barr's Remarkable CBS News Interview. In every criminal trial across America, the judge instructs the jury that the burden of proof rests with the prosecution and never, ever shifts to the defendant. The jury is told in no uncertain terms that the defendant has no burden of proof and no obligation to prove his or her innocence. It is up to the prosecution to prove each and every element of its case, and, if the prosecution fails to do so, then the jury's verdict must be "not guilty." These legal principles are not arcane, little-known concepts. Nevertheless, they seem to have eluded former FBI Director Mueller and his band of angry law school graduates who seem to think that they are in the exoneration business instead of determining whether the evidence meets the burden of proof as to each and every element of the crime of obstruction of justice. Attorney General Barr Discloses US Attorney Huber Never Even Started His Investigation — US Attorney John Durham Took Over His Work. Today [5/31/2019] on CBS Attorney General William Barr disclosed that the Huber investigation is over. Huber was assigned to look at FISA applications and the electronic surveillance during the 2016 election and actions by Hillary Clinton. Huber did not even start his investigation. Exploiting the MSM: Barr Uses CBS to Speak to America. William Barr's interview Thursday [5/30/2019] with Jan Crawford is filled with fascinating details and surprisingly candid responses, but most interesting of all may be that he undertook this dialogue not with friendlies at Fox or the Wall Street Journal but with CBS — the very beating heart of the mainstream media from well before the days of the Dan Rather embarrassment. The network is the sine qua non of Deep State establishmentarianism. You would think they would crucify him, but Barr is fearless — and justifiably so. He knows he is telling the truth and that, as the saying goes, will set you free. He also clearly wanted his words to be heard by the skeptical or confused more than those who already believe the Russia probe was politically motivated from the beginning. Sidney Powell Discusses DOJ in The Lawfare Era: "Guilty Until Proven Innocent". Not enough people understand the role of the Lawfare group in the corruption and political weaponization of the DOJ, FBI and larger intelligence community. What Media Matters is to corrupt left-wing media, the Lawfare group is to the corrupt DOJ and FBI. All of the headline names around the seditious conspiracy against Donald Trump assemble within the network of the Lawfare group. Three days after the October 21st, 2016, FISA warrant was obtained, Benjamin Wittes outlined the insurance policy approach. Top 28 Moments From Bombshell Barr Interview. Attorney General William Barr's nearly hour-long interview with CBS News' Jan Crawford last week was full of fascinating details about the special counsel probe, the debunked Russia collusion theory that roiled Washington for years, and Barr's investigation into how the FBI and Department of Justice used the "bogus" theory to investigate the Trump campaign. The interview was downplayed by the media, which is implicated in perpetuating the Russia hoax Barr is investigating, and which came in for criticism from Barr for its failure to care about violations of civil liberties. Here are the top 28 take-aways from the interview. [...] Lawfare Strategy — Pelosi House Sets Contempt Vote Against AG Barr for June 11th. Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats are structuring a contempt vote against U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr for next week, June 11th. As part of the current construct, the Lawfare alliance of legal advisers and staff are writing specific language into the vote that will automatically allow more contempt votes against the Trump administration without hearings. Their collective goal is to use a legislative vote to open a civil lawsuit against Bill Barr for his failure to deliver the fully unredacted Mueller report to them. Additionally, the contempt vote will be written so that any other arbitrary Trump administration official can also be held in contempt, without a committee vote, and thereby initiate a civil lawsuit against the executive officer that will have to be defended in court. William Barr vs. Eric Holder: A Tale of Two Attorneys General. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has declared it a "constitutional crisis" that Attorney General William Barr refuses to divulge the small parts of the Mueller report that contain grand-jury material. By a straight party-line vote, the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Barr in contempt of Congress. What did Pelosi think when Barr's predecessor, Eric Holder, refused to divulge documents to a congressional committee and was held in contempt? "Ridiculous!" she said. What did Holder and Obama say? That the House subpoena was a violation of "separation of powers." To partisans, the difference between the cases is obvious. Barr is defending Trump; Holder was Obama's self-proclaimed "wing man." Attorney General William Barr mentions spying, and fear roils the Democrats. The Democrats are fearful, as are some current and former American spymasters, and former FBI chief James Comey, and their handmaidens in journalism who took their leaks and promulgated the story that Trump was a willing and traitorous servant of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. They hoped so desperately that special counsel Robert Mueller's report would vindicate them, that Mueller would find conspiracy to collude with an adversary, that he would bring a case of obstruction of justice against the president. But Mueller did not vindicate them. Mueller was tasked with making a call, to fish or cut bait. He did not fish. He did not cut bait. He made no call that a crime occurred. He just tossed the mess weakly into Congress' lap, something for both sides to jabber about and use as fundraising leverage. Liberal Law Professor Clinically Dismantles Democrats' Contempt Case Against Barr. Left-leaning law professor Jonathan Turley — who has stood out in recent years as a rare legal analyst unwilling to allow his political views to cloud his constitutional judgments — has written an absolutely devastating column addressing House Democrats' efforts to hold Attorney General Bill Barr in contempt of Congress. Anti-Trump partisans have compiled a list of grievances against Barr, many of them specious, but House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler has chosen to focus the contempt charge on the Attorney General's unwillingness to release a tiny redacted fraction of the Mueller report. Turley says this is "the weakest possible contempt claim," warning that pursuing it will damage the House, not the administration. Attorney General Barr's analysis of Mueller's report and testimony on May 1, 2019: This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. Mueller investigation aftermath and retrospective: This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. US Attorney John Durham investigates: Devin Nunes warns 'growing concern' that Biden and Obama will shut down Durham inquiry. Rep. Devin Nunes warned of "growing concern" that President-elect Joe Biden, taking cues from former President Barack Obama, will shut down U.S. Attorney John Durham's inquiry into the Russia investigation. The California Republican, who is the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, said on Sunday that Attorney General William Barr should set up a special counsel before Inauguration Day to keep the so-called investigation of the investigators alive. "Now we're sitting waiting for Durham to complete this investigation. I think people are getting not only very frustrated but also, there's a growing concern that Durham is not going to come out with anything and then Biden and Obama are going to be back in, and they're going to shut this investigation off," Nunes told Maria Bartiromo on her Fox News program, Sunday Morning Futures. Durham Probe Still Moving Ahead. U.S. Attorney John Durham's probe into how the FBI'S Russia probe got started is moving "full steam ahead." Fox News attributed the information to a source familiar with the investigation. And another source confirmed the investigation "is definitely still happening," according to the news network. Word of the probe's status came despite concerns from Republicans that the investigation had become dormant following the election. Kevin Clinesmith, a former FBI lawyer was charged in August with making a false statement in the first criminal case arising from Durham's investigation into the probe of ties between Russia and the 2016 Donald Trump campaign. Source: Durham Investigation Closing Down Without Indictments, Scared of Biden Blowback. For well over a year now, the Durham investigation has been pumped up as the coming justice for a lot of bad characters involved in the government's Trump-Russia travesty. Any hope that figures like John Brennan, James Comey, and Andrew McCabe would pay a price for their illegal FISA warrants, lying, and targeting of Donald Trump rested on Durham doing his job. "Trust the plan" became a mantra among some on the right, with the idea being that the hammer was always just around the corner. Unfortunately, it appears Durham successfully ran out the clock. What many have suspected for a long time appears to be true, namely that no one will be held accountable for the corruption of the Trump-Russia investigation. The Federalist, who has covered this saga better than any other news outlet out there, is now reporting that Durham is looking to close up shop, fearing that an incoming Biden administration will retaliate. Report Claims Durham Is Dropping the Spygate Investigation. It appears that the bureaucracy is more afraid of the Democrats than the people, as a report emerges claiming the Justice Department is dropping the investigation into Spygate, nearly two years after it began. The Federalist's Sean Davis reports that the investigation into a treacherous spying operation on Donald Trump's campaign and presidency is being dropped. Jonathan Turley: Rumor has it John Durham has 'material undisclosed' by special counsel or DOJ watchdog. Legal scholar Jonathan Turley said there are "rumors" about secret materials obtained by U.S. Attorney John Durham. The George Washington University law professor addressed the criminal inquiry into the Russia investigation in an op-ed for the Hill on Thursday about what President-elect Joe Biden might do with politically charged investigations. Turley said there are "some rumors that Durham holds material undisclosed by the special counsel or the inspector general," referring to Justice Department watchdog Michael Horowitz, with whom Durham disagreed in the determination that the opening of the Trump-Russia investigation was justified, and former special counsel Robert Mueller, who found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. DC Legal Circles Rumor Says Member of Mueller's Prosecution Team Has "Flipped" for Durham. Something has happened in the Durham investigation of the origins of the Russia rumor hoax, and a rumor circulating among Washington, D.C., federal criminal defense attorneys is that a former member of Robert Mueller's Special Counsel's Office (SCO) has "flipped" and is providing information to the investigators regarding the work of the SCO. Ron Johnson: 'Political' for John Durham not to release interim report before election. A top Republican senator blamed U.S. Attorney John Durham's criminal inquiry into the Russia investigation for presenting a roadblock to documents sought by Congress. This is why Sen. Ron Johnson, the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said "it is incredibly disappointing" if the federal prosecutor does not intend to release an interim report before the Nov. 3 election due to concerns about such a disclosure being viewed as political as Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo reported on Sunday [9/27/2020]. "What's political is if he doesn't report," the Wisconsin Republican declared. Johnson said the "deep state" has, "through these other investigations," prevented the public "from knowing what happened with the FBI's corruption of their investigation, the corruption of the transition process, for about three-and-a-half years." Bartiromo: "Sources Confirm No Interim Durham Report or Indictments Before Election". Fox News host Maria Bartiromo announced earlier today that sources have shared not to expect any interim report or outcomes from the probe by John Durham prior to the election. Obviously for many CTH readers this will not be an unanticipated outcome; however, that alone does not mitigate disappointment. A decision not to pursue honest justice due to the election is ultimately a political decision. The dynamic of worrying about the optics of the political calendar, is itself a political decision. Huge: No Durham Report, Indictments Coming per Sources. This is not the kind of big news you want to get on an otherwise slow Sunday morning, but here it is. Fox News' Maria Bartiromo is reporting this morning that there will be no Durham interim report or indictments coming before the election. By the wording, she may actually be saying there's no report coming at all. If true, this is a travesty of justice of the highest order given what has transpired the last five years. [...] Whether or not you believe this news will probably depend on the level of cynicism you normally operate with in regards to this topic. I've been far more skeptical of the Durham investigation than even I'd like to admit at times. Claims That DOJ Prosecutors Don't Normally Resign Are Distortions and Purposefully Dishonest. I noted several examples on Twitter yesterday of the "Greek Chorus" for "Former Federal Prosecutors" banging cymbals like wind-up monkeys and shrieking "Federal prosecutors don't normally resign so this is all a protest of the corrupt acts of Attorney General Barr!" Here are a couple of examples: [Tweets] Both of these are inaccurate and dishonest. First, we don't know why Dannehy chose to resign. I noted in this story earlier that the time she has served with Durham takes her past her 20 year DOJ service time benchmark, given that when she left DOJ in 2010 she had only 19 years of service. It's also possible that her role in the Durham investigation had come to an end, and that maybe it was necessary for her to depart to preserve the integrity of the cases that might be coming shortly. But to say that her departure is in league with the departures of SCO prosecutors from problematic cases they handled is simply duplicitous. Nora Dannehy, Connecticut prosecutor who was top aide to John Durham's Trump-Russia investigation, resigns amid concern about pressure from Attorney General William Barr. Federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy, a top aide to U.S. Attorney John H. Durham in his Russia investigation, has quietly resigned — at least partly out of concern that the investigative team is being pressed for political reasons to produce a report before its work is done, colleagues said. Dannehy, a highly regarded prosecutor who has worked with or for Durham for decades, informed colleagues in the U.S. Attorney's office in New Haven of her resignation from the Department of Justice by email Thursday evening. The short email was a brief farewell message and said nothing about political pressure, her work for Durham or what the Durham team has produced, according to people who received it. Durham aide resigns from Russia probe amid concerns over pressure from Barr: report. A top aide to U.S. Attorney John Durham has reportedly resigned from the Justice Department's probe into the origins of the Russia investigation amid worries over political pressure from Attorney General William Barr. Federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy, who has worked with Durham for decades, resigned Thursday evening [9/10/2020], sources told the Hartford Courant in a story published Friday. Her resignation email did not include mention of political pressure. Dannehy, whom sources told the Courant is not a supporter of President Trump, was reportedly conflicted between politics and loyalty to Durham, a longtime colleague. The career prosecutor has led high-profile investigations into leaders such as former Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland (R). Attorney General William Barr Gives Update On Criminal Charges In Durham Investigation. U.S. Attorney General William Barr strongly suggested during an NBC News interview on Wednesday night that there are more criminal charges coming in U.S. Attorney John Durham's criminal investigation of the origins of the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign. NBC News reporter Pete Williams asked Barr: "Okay, would you say — it's unlikely that there'll be further criminal charges?" Barr responded: "No, I wouldn't say that at all, no." During a Fox News interview last month, Barr said that there were "significant developments" in the criminal investigation before the upcoming election. What's going on with the Durham investigation, if anything? Ever since Attorney General Barr appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of the Russia collusion probe, Trump supporters have been waiting for the bomb to drop. And waiting. And waiting. But nothing ever happens. Judicial Watch's founder Tom Fitton thinks that conservatives are being scammed. Instead of an investigation, it's just another Washington cover-up. I suspect (or, maybe, hope), though, that Barr and Durham are holding their fire because of the election. Tom Fitton sharply criticizes the Durham probe.. Something is wrong. Durham is NOT investigating. Looks like a sham. [Video clip] Former US Attorney Joe DiGenova Says John Brennan Is Clearly Part of Durham Investigation While Criticizing NPR and Other MSM Reporting. Former US Attorney Joe DiGenova says he believes that Obama's CIA Director John Brennan is included in the Durham Investigation and believes NPR and the MSM's reporting is not accurate. Former US Attorney Joe DiGenova was again on Mornings at the Mall on Monday morning [8/10/2020]. In his discussion this week, it was noted that reports came out this past week that John Brennan was not a likely candidate in John Durham's investigation of the Russia collusion crimes. Durham's investigation drags on. The Washington Examiner reported, "U.S. Attorney John Durham will soon interview former CIA Director John Brennan, another sign that the investigation of the Trump-Russia investigators is ready to wrap up by the end of the summer." Notice the story did not say which summer. [...] This looks more like investigation theater than holding anyone accountable for the FBI spying on Obama's political opponents. This case is being slow walked. Where [...] Is John Durham? In May 2019, Attorney General William Barr made an announcement millions of Americans had been waiting for: A U.S. attorney outside the Beltway would investigate the corrupt origins of the FBI's probe into Donald Trump's presidential campaign and government efforts to sabotage the incoming president after he was elected. For the past 14 months, we have been waiting (impatiently, I confess) for news from John Durham, the Connecticut prosecutor Barr tapped to lead the long-delayed inquiry. After all, by the time the attorney general initiated the targeted probe, there was plenty of evidence of wrongdoing by top officials in the Obama Administration, including James Comey, John Brennan, and Andrew McCabe among others. Special Counsel Robert Mueller had wrapped up his two-year partisan witch hunt and despite unlimited resources — along with the unflinching support of Republicans on Capitol Hill — Barack Obama's former FBI director could find no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. But Mueller did plenty of damage in the interim. New Steele evidence strengthens Durham prosecution as frustration over inaction grows. It was in London that the whole Russia collusion caper began four years ago, so it seems only fitting that as the discredited probe enters its final phase that damning new evidence of the FBI's failures would emerge back in England. This week when a British judge ruled against the former FBI human source Christopher Steele, the decision delivered more than an order for the former spy's company to pay damages to two Russian businessmen maligned by his dossier. It also introduced new incontrovertible evidence that bolsters Attorney General William Barr's and U.S. Attorney John Durham's probe into whether the FBI engaged in misconduct and criminally deceived the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to win permission to spy on the Trump campaign. Durham, under pressure to wrap up investigation, could 'punt' to after Election Day: source. U.S. Attorney John Durham is under pressure to wrap up his investigation into the origins of the Russia probe by the end of the summer, but if he doesn't, he could wait to reveal his findings or initiate prosecutions until after the 2020 presidential election, Fox News has learned. Two sources familiar with Durham's investigation told Fox News this week that Durham is working expeditiously to try to finish the probe by the end of summer, but that several lines of investigation are not yet complete. No, Mr. Durham. We Need Your Report Before Election Day. [Scroll down] Durham does not want his report "to be viewed political"? He must be dreaming. Nothing could be more political. It's inextricably so, no matter what he says or does or when he does it. To wit, what Mr. Durham is said to be investigating is whether one or more of our most important law enforcement and intelligence agencies (DOJ, FBI, CIA, State Department and so forth) were highjacked and used illegally to prevent Donald Trump from being elected president and/or for undercutting his presidency and administration after he was. What [...] could be more political than that? Yes, it would be a crime as well, but a crime for the most obvious and extreme political ends. And if Durham does "punt" until after the 2020 election, it could become more political still, pushing our society to the edge of civil war and beyond. Report: Durham Under Pressure to Wrap Up Spygate Investigation, Could 'Punt it to After the Election'. John Durham, the US Attorney from Connecticut appointed to investigate the origins of Spygate, is reportedly under pressure to wrap up his probe by the end of summer. However, according to two sources who spoke to Fox News, Durham could wait to initiate prosecutions or reveal his findings until after the 2020 presidential election. Durham Investigation Must Be Wrapping Up Because Barr Has Become Enemy Number One. To hear the media tell it, Attorney General William Barr and his boss, President Donald Trump, are on the verge of breaking up. Or maybe Barr is acting as the president's lapdog. It changes depending on the outlet and the hour. But one thing seems almost certain: U.S. Attorney John Durham is wrapping up his investigation into the origins of the Russia collusion probe because the same narrative machine that kicked in to give us impeachment has now demanded that Barr testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee in March. And he's agreed. NYT: US attorney leading Russia probe investigating whether US intelligence agencies hid information. The federal prosecutor leading the probe into the 2016 Trump-Russia investigation might be pursuing a basis to accuse former US intelligence officials who served under former President Barack Obama of hiding intelligence about Russia's election interference, according to The New York Times. The Times reported that John Durham, the US attorney tapped by Attorney General William Barr to look into the investigators, is questioning past disputes between different US intelligence agencies' analysts over sharing highly sensitive information regarding Russia's scheme to meddle in the 2016 US election. William Barr Has Suddenly Become Chatty — and He's Provided Quite an Information Dump. Below are 24 points Barr felt the need to make after the release of the Horowitz report. (All of the information is attributed to Barr.) [#1] Don't expect Durham's findings to be announced before late Spring or Summer 2020. [#2] The FBI did spy on the Trump campaign. That's what electronic surveillance is. [#3] Regarding FBI's actions in surveilling Trump campaign associates, it was a "travesty" and there were "many abuses." [#4] From "day one," the FBI investigation generated exculpatory information (tending to point to the targets' innocence) and nothing that corroborated Russia collusion. [...] [#24] Why haven't we already thrown people in prison? "These things take time." The government has to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt before we indict; it's a substantial hurdle. Nobody is going to be indicted and go to jail unless that standard is met. Trump Was Right From the Beginning. The biggest bombshell on Monday burst not in Washington, D.C., but in Connecticut, where John Durham, its U.S. attorney, rebutted Michael Horowitz's finding that the FBI had adequate grounds to begin an investigation of the Trump campaign. No, it didn't, said Durham: [...] Translation: Durham has collected much more information than Horowitz, and it points toward the conclusion that the investigation was bogus from the start. Naturally, the media is portraying Horowitz's timid conclusion as a refutation of Trump while ignoring the import of Durham's objection. Reporters have also scoffed at Attorney General Bill Barr's comments buttressing Durham's position. U.S. Attorney John Durham Responds To FISA Report, Hints At What's To Come. United States Attorney John Durham responded to Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz's report on Monday by stating that it was incorrect due to the limited information that it was based on whereas Durham's criminal investigation is not limited in scope and appears to have uncovered a lot more than Horowitz did. "I have the utmost respect for the mission of the Office of Inspector General and the comprehensive work that went into the report prepared by Mr. Horowitz and his staff," Durham said in a statement. "However, our investigation is not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department," Durham continued. "Our investigation has included developing information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S. Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report's conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened." Trump: 'Historic' Durham Investigation Will Implicate Obama in Spygate. On Friday morning [11/22/2019], President Donald Trump told Fox & Friends that spygate — the Obama administration's surveillance on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election based on the false pretense of Trump being in league with Russia — will be "perhaps the biggest scandal in the history of our country." He said Attorney General Bill Barr's investigation of FISA abuses and U.S. Attorney John Durham's criminal investigation will prove "historic," and he predicted that the investigations will implicate former President Barack Obama himself. "Now, what you're going to see, I predict, will be perhaps the biggest scandal in the history of our country, political scandal," Trump said. Enough Calm, Where's the Storm? US Attorney John Durham is looking into the origins of spygate and has now shifted his investigation from an inquiry to a criminal investigation. Where are the indictments, sealed or otherwise? Where are the Roger Stone-style SWAT team raids at the homes of Comey, Brennan, and Clapper, the type orchestrated by the above-mentioned Andrew Weissman? Are any of the spygate players in solitary confinement like Paul Manafort? Or are any of them fighting for their lives, like Michael Flynn, for supposedly misstating something to the FBI during a prearranged entrapment interview? Australian media reporting that US Atty Durham has interviewed Alexander Downer. Alexander Downer's meeting with George Papadopoulos at the Kensington Wine Rooms in 2016 played a key role in providing a rationale for an FBI investigation of the Trump campaign, including FISA warrants allowing wiretapping. At the time, Downer was the Australian high commissioner (ambassador) to the U.K. and had been Australia's foreign minister earlier, a very senior diplomat to be entertaining a young Trump campaign volunteer. The meeting, also attended by Aussie diplomat Erika Thompson, elicited the information from Papadopoulos that he had been told by mysterious Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud that the Russians had a trove of Hillary Clinton's missing emails. When that information was duly passed along and reached the U.S., it became justification for investigating "collusion with Russia." Mark Levin: Barr and Durham should investigate trio of former National Security Council staffers. Conservative commentator Mark Levin says the Justice Department should investigate three former National Security Council staffers. One former staffer filed a complaint that spurred House impeachment proceedings and two others were recruited by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff. Levin, who was Attorney General Edwin Meese's chief of staff during the Reagan administration, appeared on Fox News host Sean Hannity's show last week and discussed how the National Security Council has been exposed as a "rat's nest" in President Trump's White House. He said Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is conducting a criminal inquiry into the genesis of the Russia investigation, should also open up a related investigation into the origins of what is now the Democrats' impeachment proceedings. The Last Trusted Prosecutor in Washington. John Durham may be the most consequential and least known figure in Washington right now. In May, U.S. attorney general William Barr selected Durham, a longtime prosecutor with a résumé so sterling it nearly glows, to investigate the origins of the special counsel's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and whether it was properly predicated. Some Trump fans believe there was a vast effort by a "deep state" of high-ranking intelligence and law-enforcement officials to smear Trump or hinder his campaign by creating a perception of corrupt ties to Russia. [...] Since he is an attorney general appointed by President Trump, almost every decision from William Barr is criticized by Democrats as a partisan abuse of law-enforcement powers. But the appointment of Durham received no backlash, and in fact received praise far and wide. Report: Durham Knows He Has Crimes and Has a 'Pretty Good Idea' of the People Behind Them. Fox is breaking more interesting news about the Durham investigation. We know the investigation of the origins of the Russia probe has become a criminal investigation. This gives U.S. Attorney John Durham the power to issue subpoenas to witnesses and impanel a grand jury to get more information and to potentially file charges. Now a source has told Fox that Durham knows the crimes that were committed, who was involved and what can be charged. Media Ignoring The Criminal Investigation Into Obamagate. [Scroll down] He [John Durham] has just turned this reportedly into a criminal investigation — his investigation into Obamagate has apparently become a criminal investigation. That is the story that should be the headline every day. [...] It is big news that John Durham is investigating the previous administration in a criminal way. That means somebody could get indicted, that means somebody could go to jail, and it's hilarious. The principals in this, the skills, the perps, the investigators are suddenly deserting the sinking ship. Baghdadi Raid, Durham Probe Will Frustrate Impeachment. The carrying out of President Donald Trump's order to eliminate Baghdadi will be paired with another big net minus for Democrats: U.S. attorney for Connecticut John Durham's Russian election influence probe shifting into a criminal investigation. While some speculate that the criminal dimension may be in regard to peripheral matters, the speed with which Durham has come to this point, having only begun his work less than six months ago, strongly suggests otherwise. As does Democrats immediately — and groundlessly — accusing Attorney General William Barr of meddling in Durham's probe. Highly unlikely since Durham has a Boy Scout-like reputation of integrity and thoroughness. The Italian Job: 'Spygate' probe goes criminal. Thursday evening [10/24/2019] brought news that the Durham "review" of the Justice Department/FBI handling of the "Russia-Trump" operation has become a criminal investigation. [...] The report on the decision to "go criminal" also comes with an added detail from Fox's Catherine Herridge. According to her reports, the catalyst for the decision to pursue this as a criminal investigation came from the visits of Attorney General William Barr and federal DA John Durham to Italy in August and September. It was information they obtained during meetings in Rome that tipped the scales on the potential for criminal indictments. Former FBI Top Lawyer James Baker Is Now Cooperating With Durham; There Are Two James Bakers In This Movie. Is it possible that former FBI General Counsel James Baker has begun cooperating with Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham? Rumors began swirling on Friday in Washington following OANN's Jack Posobiec's interview with Ned Ryun, who is the CEO and founder of American Majority. I'll give you the bottom line first. Toward the end of the segment, Posobiec said to Ryun, "Essentially what you're saying is that Baker has flipped." Justice Dept. Is Said to Open Criminal Inquiry Into Its Own Russia Investigation. For more than two years, President Trump has repeatedly attacked the Russia investigation, portraying it as a hoax and illegal even months after the special counsel closed it. Now, Mr. Trump's own Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into how it all began. Justice Department officials have shifted an administrative review of the Russia investigation closely overseen by Attorney General William P. Barr to a criminal inquiry, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move gives the prosecutor running it, John H. Durham, the power to subpoena for witness testimony and documents, to convene a grand jury and to file criminal charges. Reports: DOJ Review of Russia Probe Origins Is Now Criminal Investigation. The Department of Justice's sweeping review into the origins of its Trump-Russia probe has evolved into a criminal investigation, according to the New York Times. The launch of a criminal probe allows U.S. Attorney John Durham, the prosecutor tapped by Attorney General William Barr to lead the review, to subpoena witnesses for testimony and documents. The move also authorizes Durham to impanel a grand jury and file charges. Durham Investigation Is Criminal: a Disaster for the MSM. To those of us who have been watching this spectacle from the beginning, this was inevitable. After all, where'd the Mueller/Russia probe come from in the first place? Since there was absolutely no there there, it makes no sense that it wasn't a fraud from the outset. Who started it? Who are the treasonous/seditious culprits who conspired to overthrow an election? Durham's investigation into possible FBI misconduct is now criminal probe, sources say. U.S. Attorney John Durham's ongoing probe into potential FBI and Justice Department misconduct in the run-up to the 2016 election through the spring of 2017 has transitioned into a full-fledged criminal investigation, two sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News on Thursday night [10/24/2019]. One source added that DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's upcoming report on alleged FBI surveillance abuses against the Trump campaign will shed light on why Durham's probe has become a criminal inquiry. Horowitz announced on Thursday his report would be available to the public soon, with "few" redactions. The investigation's new status means Durham can subpoena witnesses, file charges, and impanel fact-finding grand juries. Laws against seditious conspiracy have real legal teeth. With the coming AG Barr- and US Attorney Durham-initiated legal tsunami ready to wash in against all that were part of this historic silent coup, it would now be possible to bring additional charges against those bad actors that previously thought they were beyond real criminal penalties because the fix was in. It is about to get very interesting, and as an original member of Trump Nation, it will be interesting to see how many very cleaver but morally and legally blind individuals who betrayed their oath of office are brought to justice. Durham's probe into possible FBI misconduct expanded based on new evidence, sources say. U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation into the origins of the FBI's 2016 Russia probe has expanded based on new evidence uncovered during a recent trip to Rome with Attorney General Bill Barr, sources told Fox News on Tuesday [10/22/2019]. The sources said Durham was "very interested" to question former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan, an anti-Trump critic who recently dismissed the idea. The two Obama administration officials were at the helm when the unverified and largely discredited Steele dossier, written by British ex-spy Christopher Steele and funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, was used to justify a secret surveillance warrant against former Trump adviser Carter Page. It Sure Looks Like the Barr-Durham Probe Is Now a Criminal Investigation. Yesterday, RedState via Elizabeth Vaughn shared the news that Durham had further expanded his investigation to include James Clapper and John Brennan. This, of course, left Brennan flailing about wildly, wondering why the DOJ would even be interested in him. [...] With the latest report, there are a few things happening that make me think this isn't just window dressing. In fact, I think it has morphed into a full blown criminal investigation. Brennan And Clapper To Be Interviewed As Part Of Investigation Into Russia Probe Origins. U.S. Attorney John Durham intends to interview former CIA Director John Brennan as part of his investigation into U.S. intelligence agencies' activities in the Trump-Russia probe, according to NBC News. Brennan told NBC News, where he is an analyst, that both he and James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, are sought for interviews with Durham's investigators. The interviews, should they occur, would signal that Durham is expanding his investigation. NY Times: Prosecutors Have Interviewed About Two Dozen Witnesses in Russia Probe. Federal prosecutors say they've interviewed about two dozen witnesses, including former FBI officials, in the government's probe of the origins of the FBI's Russian investigation, according to a story in today's New York Times. Attorney General William Barr, who requested the investigation, is trying to discover the basis for the FBI's surveillance of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election and whether it was politically motivated by anti-Trump, pro-Clinton officials. U.S. attorney John Durham has apparently made more progress in his investigation than observers previously thought. Durham Broadens Investigation into 2016 Russia Probe, Adds More Agents and Resources. John Durham, the U.S. attorney tasked with investigating the origins of the counterintelligence investigation into Russia and the Trump campaign in 2016, is expanding his probe to include "a post-election timeline," Fox News reported on Tuesday. Durham — who has a reputation for being a "hard-charging, bulldog" prosecutor — has also added agents and resources to the case, multiple senior administration officials told Fox. Previously, it was understood that Durham was only reviewing U.S. intelligence activities during the 2016 election up to the inauguration. Now, based on his findings, Durham has reportedly expanded his investigation to include a time period that runs through "the spring of 2017, up to when Robert Mueller was named special counsel." The Comey-Brennan Conspiracy to Violate Trump's Civil Rights. The IG investigations are a sideshow. [...] The real investigation into Comey, former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, former special agent Strzok and the rest of the FBI and CIA malefactors is the one being conducted by a real prosecutor, U.S. Attorney John Durham. John Durham Must Investigate 'Unmasking'. Partisans may cheer or jeer prosecutor John Durham, appointed by Attorney General William Barr to investigate how the FBI came to investigate Russian involvement in the Trump 2016 campaign. Of deeper interest to thoughtful people across the political spectrum is the light this investigation may shed on abuses of government surveillance that have occurred under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Given Durham's reputation for being both fearless and fair, the U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut seems ideal for the job: He has investigated government misconduct ranging from the fiasco surrounding Boston mobster Whitey Bulger to CIA "enhanced interrogation" methods. Durham is targeting Brennan and "Unauthorized political surveillance". The criminal farce of the Mueller-Weissmann dossier is being exposed as an extension of the Russia hoax. Mueller is the fragile front man manipulated by a cabal of Trump-hating coup plotters. The focus can now shift to U.S. Attorney John Durham and Inspector General Michael Horowitz. And also to the criminal behavior that created the campaign to destroy Donald Trump by the Obama White House. Attorney General William Barr and the spokesman for John Durham both said that the focus of their investigation would be on "unauthorized surveillance" and "political surveillance". DiGenova: Durham's investigation moving at 'lightning speed,' bad actors in DOJ, FBI will be held accountable. Former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova is optimistic about the investigation into the origins of the Russia probe, noting that the process is moving at "lightning speed." Along with his wife and partner, Victoria Toensing, diGenova spoke with Fox Business Network's Lou Dobbs about U.S. Attorney John Durham and his examination of the FBI's Russia inquiry which is now a criminal investigation. DOJ pursuing transcripts of George Papadopoulos tapes in review of Russia investigation origins. Little is known about these classified transcripts, including who is the source, other than the growing hype about them in conservative circles. Former Rep. Trey Gowdy called them a "game changer" in a Fox News interview in May. But progress is being made to peel back the mystery, according to a Fox News report, as Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation and possible misconduct by DOJ and FBI officials ramps up. Reluctant witnesses in FISA abuse probe agree to talk to DOJ inspector general. Key witnesses sought for questioning by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz early in his investigation into alleged government surveillance abuse have come forward at the 11th hour, Fox News has learned. Sources familiar with the matter said at least one witness outside the Justice Department and FBI started cooperating — a breakthrough that came after Attorney General William Barr ordered U.S. Attorney John Durham to lead a separate investigation into the origins of the bureau's 2016 Russia case that laid the foundation for Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe. John 'I Don't Do Evidence' Brennan Appears to be Spooked By Durham's Plans to Interview CIA Officials. [Scroll down] The question is, was this just a fictional story manufactured to promote the Russia hoax? Since not even Mueller's team of angry Democrats were able to uncover any concrete evidence, the answer may be yes. Political analyst and former U.S. intelligence office Ray McGovern thinks so. Report: John Durham Questioning CIA Officials About Intelligence Community Assessment. The New York Times has a report this evening surrounding U.S. Attorney John Durham questioning CIA officials about the origination of the Trump-Russia investigation. However, a closer look at the substance underneath the NYT reporting and it doesn't actually look like Durham is questioning the CIA about the investigation itself; rather it appears he is questioning the CIA about how they came to the conclusions within the January 7th, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment, or ICA. DOJ investigating 'non-governmental organizations and individuals' as part of 'broad' probe into surveillance abuses. As part of its ongoing "multifaceted" and "broad" review into potential misconduct by U.S. intelligence agencies during the 2016 presidential campaign, the Justice Department revealed Monday [6/10/2019] it is also investigating the activities of several "non-governmental organizations and individuals." Additionally, the DOJ announced that the probe, let [sic] by Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, was looking into the involvement of "foreign intelligence services." Former Trump aide George Papadopoulos told Fox News last month that an informant who was likely "CIA and affiliated with Turkish intel" had posed as a Cambridge University research assistant in September 2016 and tried to "seduce him" to obtain information linking the Trump team to Russia. GOP: Dem fears rising as 'Bull' Durham's 'Russiagate' probe expanded to three levels of Obama corruption. A pair of Republican lawmakers who joined host Dan Bongino on Fox News Friday [6/7/2019] said that the Trump Justice Department's probe into the origins of the Obama-era "Spygate" coup attempt has risen to three levels of corruption as Democrats on Capitol Hill grow increasingly nervous about what's about to come out. John Durham Needs To Investigate Why The Info Generating The Mueller Probe Is All Linked To Hillary Clinton. The Federal Bureau of Investigation had a budget approaching $10 billion during James Comey's tenure as its director. Combined with budgets for the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, these agencies cost taxpayers around $30 billion annually. Therefore, one would think that incriminating evidence derived from the FBI, NSA, or CIA could have linked Donald Trump to Russian hackers or Kremlin operatives, if that evidence existed. Instead, almost all the major findings used to justify investigations into Trump's campaign are linked to Hillary Clinton or the Democratic Party. Barr has not received 'satisfactory' answers from intelligence community in Russia probe origins review. Attorney General Bill Barr said he has not received answers from the intelligence community that are "at all satisfactory" in the early stages of his review into the origins of the Russia investigation. Last month, Barr announced he had assembled a team to review the FBI's original Russia probe which was opened in the summer of 2016. Barr appointed U.S. Attorney from Connecticut John Durham to lead the investigation which will focus on the use of FBI informants as well as alleged improper issuance of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants. Christopher Steele allegedly refusing to cooperate with Barr-appointed 'bulldog' US Attorney. Disgraced former British spy Christopher Steele has allegedly prematurely refused to cooperate with U.S. Attorney John Durham, the "bulldog" prosecutor assigned by Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate the origins of the fruitless probe into alleged Russian collusion. According to a source close to Steele's private investigation firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, who spoke with Reuters, he is, however, willing to cooperate with other federal officials. Christopher Steele Refuses to be Questioned by DOJ Investigator John Durham. Reuters is reporting the DNC paid Dossier author, Christopher Steele, is refusing to be questioned by DOJ investigator John Durham. This follows a pattern of Chris Steele refusing to talk to congress and also refusing to talk to Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Time to Pay the Piper. Attorney General William Barr is now tasked to investigate the origins of the phony investigation against President Trump. The assault is over. The king is still alive and sounds of the piper can be faintly heard. Speculation abounds regarding what was done and by whom. Like him or loathe him, Donald Trump is now on the offensive and he holds all the cards. Watergate may end up looking like a jaywalking violation by the time this investigation is over. Unraveling Of The Obama Administration Conspiracy. With President Donald Trump's announcement on May 23rd that he has authorized Attorney General William Barr to begin the declassification process of everything related to the start of the Russian Collusion investigation, we may finally be at a point where people from the Obama administration will start to be held accountable for their actions, which were designed to undermine the Trump presidential campaign and his presidency. That announcement comes on top of the recent appointment by Barr of U.S. Attorney John Durham to look into the origins of the Russian Collusion investigation. Also, there is the much-anticipated Inspector General report looking into whether the Department of Justice and the FBI abused their power when they went to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) seeking FISA warrants to surveil a former Trump foreign policy adviser, Carter Page. The Investigations Into Investigators Begins. Attorney General Bill Barr is coming after the Democrats and Deep State actors who committed the Russia probe hoax. And, if his Fox News interview on Friday [5/17/2019] is to be believed, he is coming after them with his guns blazing and taking no prisoners. He told Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer that a part of the probe is going to focus on briefings that President Donald Trump received in 2017. [Video clip] Bull Durham at Justice. Mr. Barr gets credit for not naming Mr. Durham a "special counsel." Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein succumbed to Democratic special-counsel demands two years ago this month, with all the predictable results. The rampaging investigation prosecuted Americans for everything other than the "collusion" it was supposed to uncover. It became a black hole, the subject of endless media speculation — and a cudgel for Democrats to use against the Trump presidency. Special counsels are only supposed to be appointed when the Justice Department is clearly too conflicted to investigate a matter. No one doubts that the in-house Mr. Durham is capable of making an impartial assessment of the individuals and actions that launched the Trump-Russia probe. Then again, Justice also had the ability to investigate the original Trump-Russia story. It was just a matter of getting the right person to run the investigation. Barr's Investigator John Durham Once Probed Mueller in a Shocking Case. Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham was appointed to investigate the origins of the Russia-Trump probe. Apparently, he has been on the job for weeks. Durham is the perfect investigator for the job by all accounts and he had experience with Robert Mueller in the Whitey Bulger case. He did not side with Mueller and Mueller's agents suffered the consequences of Mueller's, some would say, corrupt leadership. Which One Of The Spygate Rats Will Flip First? The news that Attorney General William Barr has tasked Connecticut U.S. attorney John Durham to "examine the origins of the Russia investigation and determine if intelligence collection involving the Trump campaign was 'lawful and appropriate.'" According to reporting by Dan Bongino's team, Durham has previously investigated corruption in law enforcement and the destruction of CIA videos. Perhaps Durham's most notable case was his unravelling of the FBI corruption and cover-up involving mobster Whitey Bulger and the Boston FBI field office while Robert Mueller was FBI Director. 'Both stories can't be true:' 'Spygate' begins to unravel as Brennan vs Comey camps point fingers. Disgraced former Obama administration officials James Comey and John Brennan are reportedly duking it out publicly in what for all intents and purposes looks a whole lot like a real-life performance of the hilarious Mad magazine cartoon "Spy vs. Spy." Except the implications of this "performance" are mad real, pun intended. This real-life feud over what's often referred to as "spygate" concerns the infamous Steele dossier. The question everybody wants to be answered is "whodunit," i.e., which one of these two disgraced officials was responsible for elevating the fraudulent, smear-filled document into undeserved relevance. Joe diGenova: 'John Brennan Is the Mastermind' of 'Conspiracy to Frame Donald Trump'. "John Brennan has lost his security clearance," recalled diGenova, "much to the credit of the President of the United States, a good result for the American people." DiGenova added, "Make no mistake about it, John Brennan is the mastermind of this conspiracy to frame Donald Trump and to steal his presidency from him after he was elected." Bill Barr's probe has Brennan, Clapper and Comey ratting on each other. According to the latest reports, the rats are scurrying about, as the ship of deep state appears to be scuttled. This will be a lot of fun to watch. The tables appear to be turning. Expect no bull from investigation by Durham. Cautiously optimistic — that's how I feel about U.S. Attorney John Durham being put in charge of getting to the bottom of the failed FBI-Deep State coup against President Trump. Maybe you're pessimistic, concerned that the top federal prosecutor in Connecticut might turn out to be another one of these disappointments like Jeff Sessions' boys from Chicago and Utah who haven't really done any investigation of the investigators. John Durham already used a grand jury in Russia origins probe, Joe diGenova says. U.S. Attorney John Durham has already used a grand jury in Connecticut, attorney Joe diGenova said on Tuesday [5/14/2019]. It was revealed this week that Attorney General William Barr tasked Durham with examining the origins of the federal Russia investigation. In a Fox News interview, diGenova said Durham, who is a U.S. attorney in Connecticut, has been working for a couple of months. New Russiagate Prober Has Haunted FBI for Months. John Durham, the prosecutor tapped by Attorney General William Barr to investigate how Trump-Russia allegations emerged and spread within federal law enforcement, has already been looking into whether the FBI's former top lawyer, James Baker, illegally leaked to reporters. In fact, the U.S. attorney from Connecticut appears to have begun that work more than seven months ago, to judge from an underreported transcript of an October congressional interview with Baker. What are the odds that the Durham investigation is for real and will bring the bad actors to justice? Following the disclosure that U.S. attorney John Durham has been tasked with investigating and prosecuting potential crimes in the origin of the Russia Hoax, we learned some very encouraging facts that suggest that the Russia Hoax will be fully aired and miscreants brought to justice. Like Howie Carr, who had a front-row seat when John Durham went after corruption in the FBI Boston office, I am "cautiously optimistic" (Howie's term) that Durham and his boss A.G. Barr want to get to the bottom of the hoax and put those who may have committed crimes in prison. In Boston, Durham faced a gigantic scandal that was very damaging to the FBI and did not blink. He got John Connelly, Whitey Bulger's protector, sentenced to 40 years in prison. This does not sound like a prosecutor who can be persuaded to lay off getting to the truth in order to protect the reputations of important people and institutions. Is This The Man To Bring The Anti-Trump Deep State Down? If you don't know the name John Durham now is the time to remember the name, John Durham[.] Attorney General taps top Connecticut federal prosecutor for review of Trump-Russia inquiry. Attorney General William Barr tapped Connecticut's chief federal prosecutor, John Durham, to assist in an investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation and the FBI's surveillance activities, a person familiar with the matter said Monday [5/13/2019]. The person, who is not authorized to comment publicly, said that Durham has been assisting the attorney general for at least a couple of weeks to determine whether federal investigators acted appropriately in the early stages of the now-completed inquiry into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. Barr assigns US attorney in Connecticut to look into government surveillance involving Trump campaign: source. Attorney General William Barr has appointed a U.S. attorney to examine the origins of the Russia investigation and determine if intelligence collection efforts targeting the Trump campaign were "lawful and appropriate," a person familiar with the situation told Fox News on Monday evening [5/13/2019]. John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, will conduct the inquiry, the source said. The move comes as the Trump administration has pushed for answers on why federal authorities conducted the surveillance — as well as whether Democrats were the ones who improperly colluded with foreign actors. Two sources told Fox News earlier today that Barr was "serious" and had assigned DOJ personnel to the probe. Durham is known as a "hard-charging, bulldog" prosecutor, Fox News is told. AG Bill Barr Appoints U.S. Attorney John Durham to Review Origin of Russia Investigation. Once again the New York Times is getting out ahead of the story to reveal Attorney General Bill Barr has instructed U.S. Attorney John Durham to review the origins of the 2016 DOJ and FBI surveillance of the Trump campaign. The appointment looks like a way to keep the sensitive inquiry within Barr's control as opposed to appointing a special counsel. John H Durham, the U.S. attorney from Connecticut, has handled previous investigations into the intelligence community. FBI spies are toast. The man who nailed the FBI agents who helped mobster Whitey Bulger is heading the investigation of the origin of Obama's unconstitutional spying on Donald John Trump. [...] Time magazine lauded him (and rightly so) on August 26, 2009. It reported, "In 1999 he was selected by Attorney General Janet Reno to probe law-enforcement corruption in Boston. Last year he was named by Attorney General Michael Mukasey to head the ongoing investigation into the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes. Colleagues say Durham is thorough and cautious in deciding whether a case deserves to be prosecuted. But once he fixes on a target, the veteran lawyer usually catches his prey." William Barr appoints US attorney to examine origins of Russia probe. Attorney General William Barr has appointed a top Connecticut prosecutor to look into the origins of the Russia probe. US Attorney John Durham was tapped to determine if the government's methods of collecting intelligence involving the 2016 Trump campaign were "lawful and appropriate," the Associated Press reported, citing a source. This appointment comes about a month after Barr told Congress he believed "spying did occur" against the Trump campaign, without providing details. The Mueller monologue and impeachment infomercial, May 29, 2019: This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. Robert Mueller himself This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. Mueller testimony, July 24, (originally July 17) 2019: This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. Articles written during the Mueller investigation: This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. James Wolfe Senate Intelligence Committee Security Director James Wolfe Sentenced to Two Months Prison time. The sentencing guideline for the single count of lying to federal investigators was: 0 to 6 months. After a rather sketchy plea deal, DOJ Prosecutors had requested an upward revision to two-years incarceration based on the severity of the conduct. James Wolfe: The Liar No One Is Talking About. In a recent court filing, the defendant's attorneys begged for mercy. The offender — once a high-level government official assigned with protecting national security secrets — had pleaded guilty to one charge of making a false statement to the FBI in 2017. Citing his modest upbringing, community involvement, and decorated military service, the defendant's lawyers asked the judge only to impose a sentence of probation rather than jail time. Revisiting the Page FISA Applications & James Wolfe Indictment. In the public version of the Original Page FISA Application there are 37 fully redacted pages (out of 83 total). Several other pages have redactions for all but the header. There are only two pages in the entire document that contain no redactions. Why would Wolfe bother to send 37 pages of complete redactions[?] There are also strong indications that Grassley, and by extension the SSCI, saw unredacted versions of the Page FISA Applications. The Grassley Memo discusses the Page FISA Applications at length and nowhere does Grassley mention any redactions. The Curious Case of James Wolfe
Continues. First, we know from overwhelming circumstantial evidence, conveniently overlooked by media, that one of Wolfe's
specific leaks involved sending his concubine Ali Watkins a copy of the 82-page FISA application used to gain a Title-1 surveillance warrant
against U.S. person Carter Page. Some key things about this leak:
Oh My, This is Either A Sting -OR- The Most Corrupt U.S. Dept of Justice in History. The indictment of former senior senate intelligence committee staffer James Wolfe is filled with information to highlight a much bigger picture. [...] Based on the James Wolfe indictment we know the DOJ was aware of the leaking of the FISA application since at least mid-December 2017. On December 15th, 2017 James Wolfe was busted; the FBI had him dead-to-rights. However, the grand jury proceedings didn't start until May 3rd, 2018; and the indictment was sealed until June 7th, 2018. That means six months passed between busting Wolfe on Dec. 15th, 2017, and indicting Wolfe on June 7th, 2018. Let that sink in. The U.S. Department of Justice has known, with certainty, since December of last year, that the United States Senate Intelligence Committee had leaked the content of a classified FISA application to the media. New leak indictment spells disaster for McCabe. The indictment of James Wolfe, 58, former security director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), has sent shockwaves around Washington. Wolfe faces three counts of violating 18 U.S.C. 1001, for making false statements to criminal investigators, and could easily face serious jail time if convicted. After a year of leaks cascading down Capitol Hill, Wolfe is a cautionary tale for many members, staffers and journalists. Yet, one person should be especially discomforted by the indictment: former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe. The Wolfe indictment shows the Justice Department has been actively pursuing leaks out of Congress. Given the lack of prior action, members and staffers may have become emboldened over time, but it now appears the Trump administration has been quietly tracking down the source of some news articles. Wolfe was an obvious concern for any allegations of leaks, given his work at the SSCI for three decades, from 1987 to 2017. DOJ Inadvertently Highlights SSCI Corruption in Responsive Filing Toward Wolfe Sentencing Memo. If you have followed the case against SSCI Security Director James Wolfe you will note the original indictment against him outlined, obliquely, how Wolfe took custody of the Carter Page FISA application and then leaked it to his concubine at Buzzfeed Ms. Ali Watkins. The leak of the FISA application was a rather explosive issue not readily identified when Wolfe's indictment was first presented (June '18). It was only possible to connect the dots after the FISA application was released (July '18) and a comparison on specific dates, times, contacts and chain-of-custody, was possible. Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and their conveniently "lost" text messages This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. Peter Strzok's public testimony, July 12, 2018 This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here. The FBI seems to avoid any evidence against Hillary Clinton: Jim Comey Ignored Department Whistleblower on Hillary's Crimes With Classified Material. One year before Jim Comey was immersed in his plot to overthrow Donald Trump, the duly elected President of the United States, a brave Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Department of State came forward with firsthand information of Hillary Clinton's rampant abuse of Classified material. The man, a senior State Department diplomat who had served as the acting Ambassador (Chargé d'Affaires) in the Asia Pacific region under President Clinton, also was a veteran of the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. The letter from this whistleblower is stunning and I am going to present it in total. It is dated 10 January 2016. [...] The Deep State Wins if Trump Loses. In his 2017 inauguration speech, President Trump shocked the world by promising to take on the Washington, D.C. establishment — aka "The Swamp" — and thereby return power to the people. The Swamp denizens seated in the main dais behind Trump that day, Republican and Democrat alike, were not pleased, to put it mildly. [...] We saw Holy James Comey, the disgraced former head of the FBI, totally tank two investigations into Hillary Clinton, one looking into Clinton Foundation money-laundering and the other scrutinizing Hillary's illegal secret server. All you have to know about Comey, other than he's as dirty as he is tall, is that he penned Crooked Hillary's exoneration letter months before the supposed investigation ended, months before he even interviewed Clinton. Sidney Powell's Speech From March Is Now Making Waves as New Reports Indicate Clinton Foundation Is Under a Criminal Investigation. A speech by Sidney Powell back in November is now given more attention with word that the Clinton Foundation is now under a criminal investigation. In her speech in March, Powell shared the following: ["]The Anthony Weiner laptop, which I don't know if you heard this. I wrote an article about that too. 675,000 Clinton emails when they got Anthony Weiner's laptop in a search warrant because of all his sex perversion issues. It was all the Clinton emails, the Clinton Foundation, her Secretary of State emails, Huma Abedin emails, lots of people emailed Huma as a proxy for Hillary, and it included what Comey called... the golden emails, because they were the blackberry backup emails. That they were supposedly just looking for very diligently, well guess what they did when they found them on the Weiner laptop? They got a search warrant for things that didn't include the blackberry backup emails. So when they told us, when he stood there and said that day, oh we've reviewed all the emails now, there is nothing there. That was a bald face lie."["] Why should anyone believe James Comey? [Scroll down] The portrait is in October Surprise, a new book by Washington Post reporter Devlin Barrett. The book focuses on the period in late October 2016, when the FBI was deep into the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and Comey decided, 11 days before the presidential election, to inform Congress, and thus the world, that the FBI had reopened the Hillary Clinton email investigation. The reopening, which ultimately came to nothing, outraged Democrats and Comey's colleagues in the Obama Justice Department. The Clinton email decision, as I describe in my own book, Obsession: Inside the Washington Establishment's Never-Ending War on Trump, spurred some of President-elect Trump's closest advisers, including Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, and Jeff Sessions, to urge him to fire Comey immediately upon taking office. The advisers were not offended on behalf of Hillary Clinton. Instead, they believed the episode showed that Comey was so erratic, headstrong, and self-righteous that he would surely cause trouble in a Trump administration. Trump did not take their advice, to his regret. Report: Durham Investigating Main Justice Resistors Blocking FBI Subpoenas in 2016, RE: Clinton Investigation. Two media reports today [9/24/2020] point toward an aspect CTH had noticed happening in the background of the Durham/Aldenberg investigation. The Washington Examiner and New York Times are writing about Durham investigating 2016 efforts from Main Justice DOJ to block FBI efforts to investigate the Clinton Foundation. The interesting part is what the media ignore [...] FBI Agent Who Discovered Hillary's Emails On Weiner Laptop Claims He Was Told To Erase Computer. FBI agent John Robertson, the man who found Hillary Clinton's emails on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, claims he was advised by bosses to erase his own computer. Former FBI Director James Comey, you may recall, announced days before the 2016 presidential election that he had "learned of the existence" of the emails on Weiner's laptop. Weiner is the disgraced husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Robertson alleges that the manner in which his higher-ups in the FBI handled the case was "not ethically or morally right." Book: FBI Agent on Sex Crimes Unit Found Hillary Clinton Emails. An FBI agent investigating child pornography on former Rep. Anthony Weiner's computer first stumbled on hundreds of thousands of emails, many of which were to and from Hillary Clinton, ahead of the 2016 election, a new book reveals. The Washington Post's Devlin Barrett wrote "October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election," in which he provides an inside look at what happened in the weeks before the 2016 election — and how the discovery of the Clinton emails threw a wrench into the electoral process. Special Agent John Robertson was investigating allegations that Weiner sent sexually explicit material to a 15-year-old girl when he stumbled on 600,000 emails from an account belonging to Weiner's then-wife Huma Abedin, Clinton's top aide, sitting on Weiner's laptop. Many of the emails were either to or from the private email address of Clinton, who served as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. New details emerge about FBI delay on Weiner laptop in 2016. New details have emerged about 2016's "October Surprise," during which the FBI found emails belonging to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on disgraced New York Rep. Anthony Weiner's laptop, with the FBI official who found the emails speaking out for the first time. FBI agent John Robertson, who worked in its New York office's child sex crimes unit and was later cited (though not named) in Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's 2018 report on the handling of the investigation of Clinton's unauthorized private email server, spoke with the Washington Post's Devlin Barrett for his upcoming book, October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election. Robertson unearthed tens of thousands of Clinton emails in late September 2016 on the laptop belonging to Weiner, the husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, in a sex crimes case involving underage girls, but for weeks after being alerted, top FBI leaders [...] took little to no action to investigate. FBI agent who found Hillary Clinton's emails on Anthony Weiner's laptop calls agency's handling of case 'immoral'. An FBI agent who found the messages that led to the Hillary Clinton email investigation being reopened days before the 2016 election said the way the bureau handled the case was 'not ethically or morally right'. John Robertson feared he would be made a 'scapegoat' when he found the new emails less than two months before voting day, in the wake of DailyMail.com's revelation that Anthony Weiner, whose wife Huma Abedin was Clinton's top aide, was sexting an underage girl. Robertson watched nervously as the bureau did nothing for a month until he went outside the chain of command and spoke with the US Attorney's office overseeing the case. FBI Agents Pushed For A FISA To Investigate Foreign Government Targeting Hillary Clinton. FBI agents in 2015 sought authorization to surveil foreign government operatives who sought to influence Hillary Clinton, but ultimately settled for a defensive briefing given to lawyers for the Democratic presidential candidate, according to documents released on Sunday [8/23/2020]. One FBI agent involved in the investigation asked then-FBI Director James Comey in an April 2015 email for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant, according to the documents, published by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham. A FISA order was not granted in the investigation. Instead, an FBI special agent provided a defensive briefing to Clinton's personal lawyers in October 2015. Graham, a Republican, said that the documents are evidence of a double standard in how the FBI conducted investigations of foreign meddling regarding the Clinton and Trump campaigns. Former top FBI lawyer worried Hillary Clinton would be indicted after winning election. The FBI's top lawyer was torn over what to do when FBI Director James Comey asked in 2016 whether he should inform Congress that the bureau was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails. FBI General Counsel James Baker had been told that FBI agents discovered between 600,000 and 1 million emails on disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner's laptop relating to Clinton. The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee's top aide, Huma Abedin, was married to Weiner, who was being investigated for sending illicit texts to an underage girl. Baker, who left the FBI in May 2018, told author David Rohde that he felt like the "fates had thrown him a hundred-mile-an-hour fastball." DOJ Blocks FBI Investigation of Clinton's Swindle of Bill Gates Charity Cash. When FBI agents working the Clinton Foundation investigation developed intelligence that tech pioneer and philanthropist Bill Gates was beyond angry at Bill and Hillary Clinton for duping his charitable foundation out of as much as $200 million, FBI brass wanted to arrange a sit down with the Microsoft mogul. Gates, after all, is the second wealthiest man in the United States, running a close second behind Amazon king Jeff Bezos. That is the kind of fact witness FBI agents dream about. Would Gates flip on the Clinton's and spill the beans on the millions he forked over to their sham foundation? Bad blood between Gates and the Clinton's would certainly help fortify a criminal case against the Clinton Foundation. But as Thomas Paine revealed on his Moore Paine Show on Patreon Tuesday night [2/25/2020] as well as the Thomas Paine Podcast on Wednesday — FBI agents never got the chance to pick Gates' brain. The Justice Department blocked access to Mr. Gates. 5 Times Barack Obama Protected His Allies from Justice and Democrats Didn't Care. [#1] Hillary Clinton: It was not all that long ago that Hillary Clinton was the heir-apparent to Barack Obama, and Obama wasn't going to let her criminal behavior get in the way of her winning the election and keeping his legacy intact. Thanks to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey, Hillary was never going to be punished for her illegal private server and mishandling of classified and top-secret information that would have seen anyone else indicted. In fact, FBI Director James Comey had drafted her exoneration letter before Hillary had even been interviewed by the FBI. Obama Interposed His Opinion in Hillary Clinton Case While Investigation Was Ongoing, But Dems Said Nothing. For starters, is there anyone that thinks that Roger Stone would have been prosecuted at all but for the vendetta to hang convictions on folks next to Trump? Did he get a raw deal with the recommendation of 7-9 years for a first offense which was non-violent? It sure sounds like it, as Trey Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor, has noted. Trump was making a comment on a proposed recommendation, that he thought it was excessive. He doesn't have power over the ultimate sentence nor does the DOJ. Let's go back and look at what Barack Obama said and did during the investigation into Hillary Clinton. He actually interposed himself, basically declaring her innocent while the investigation was still ongoing. The Democrat Data App. [Scroll down] When ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — Democrat presidential candidate in 2016 — violated many laws by mishandling sensitive data, the head of the FBI himself, James Comey, acted more like a pope than an agent of the law, publicly granting her a papal indulgence reserved for high-ranking Democrats. Her crimes were annulled. Her little mistake was erased, aborted. It was just careless, not deliberate, said Pope James. It did not matter that "she should have known better," because, after all, clearly, she had to know better. Clinton was an experienced official and an experienced lawyer. Clinton herself had claimed she was the most experienced candidate running in 2016 and in 2008. She knew the letter and spirit of the law. It also did not matter that she and her staff clearly acted with full deliberation, destroying evidence of her guilt — her phones and her email server. They were given immunity by Comey, America's tallest undertaker, who rubbed his hands unctuously as he buried the case. FBI Investigators Say McCabe Apologized for Lying about Clinton-Probe Leak. FBI investigators claim former deputy director Andrew McCabe admitted to misleading them about his involvement in a media leak and subsequently apologized for the lie, according to newly released transcripts of McCabe's interviews with investigators. The transcripts, released by the Department of Justice Inspector General's office (OIG) — which found McCabe "lacked candor" with investigators in a scathing February 2018 report — detail how McCabe spun a false narrative that he was not responsible for leaking the information cited in a October 2016 Wall Street Journal article that detailed a new probe into Hillary Clinton's email use. Connection revealed between FBI and lawyer working for Hillary Clinton. Recently the conservative organization Judicial Watch revealed the contents of several emails from former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who would have had preferential treatment with the lawyer representing former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's collaborators. As the conservative BizPac Review website indicates, Beth Wilkinson, Clinton's lawyer met with top FBI officials and even received privileged treatment in which she was warned about media coverage and given the opportunity to participate in "discreet" meetings. The Madness of Progressive Projection. Who made the decision to quash the investigation of Hillary Clinton after she destroyed over 30,000 emails under subpoena? Who excused Obama officials after they knowingly misled federal FISA court justices? Who leaked information about a surveilled phone call between Michael Flynn and the Russian ambassador? Who decided that it was acceptable for Samantha Power to request over 260 times the unmasking of names of American citizens swept up in government surveillance, many of which were illegally leaked to the press and most of which Power denied requesting and alleged others had used her name to do so? Somewhere, somehow there was a great deal of obstruction and distortion of justice that so far has prevented the pursuit of these criminal acts. Trump-Russia and Clinton-Libya: A Story of 2 Probes and the FBI. Records recently posted online by the FBI indicate that it did little to investigate allegations from private sources connected to Republicans about a scheme in which associates of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to exploit their connection to her to profit from the turmoil in Libya in 2011. The FBI received the documents in June 2016, around the same time it launched an exhaustive, three-year investigation of the Trump campaign's ties to Russia based, in part, on information from private sources connected to Democrats that in the main would prove to be false — the Steele dossier. The bureau's different responses to these documents also came during the same period when FBI Director James B. Comey controversially cleared Clinton, in his first of two exonerations, of criminal wrongdoing in the bureau's probe of her unauthorized and insecure email setup. Where is Huma Abedin's Laptop? An August 2018 release from the FBI Vault on the Hillary Clinton email investigation revealed the Anthony Weiner/Huma Abedin laptop containing Clinton emails (350,000) and Blackberry communications (344,000) was never reviewed for intrusion prior to the 2016 election. Does anyone at the DOJ/FBI even care about this issue any longer? Trump can change history by declassifying three Obama-era documents. [Scroll down] The final Obama-era tranche that requires declassification concerns Hillary Clinton's email controversy — a highly classified set of documents that FBI agents identified as important and necessary in the investigation into whether she violated the law by transmitting classified emails on her unsecured private server. As I wrote last week, the agents never got to review those documents in 2016 before then-FBI Director James Comey unilaterally decided not to seek criminal charges against Mrs. Clinton. The Justice Department's internal watchdog in 2018 provided Congress a classified annex explaining how the FBI intended to examine that secret evidence, but never did. Sources who have seen the annex say it contains explosive revelations about what really happened with Clinton's emails and the national security concerns that her conduct raised. Comey FBI Willfully Ignored "Highly Classified" Hillary Clinton Emails; Barr Radio Silent. President Obama's FBI, ran by disgraced former director James Comey, knew about - but purposefully ignored - "highly classified" evidence in the Hillary Clinton email investigation before they downgraded their initial assessment of her crime from a felony to a "grossly negligent" mistake. As The Hill's John Solomon reports, a Senate staff memo updating an ongoing inquiry by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) reveals that the FBI decided to back off their pursuit of this damning evidence "even though the agents believed access to the sensitive evidence was "necessary" to complete the investigation," writes Solomon. The road not taken: Another FBI failure involving the Clintons surfaces. August in Washington can be the political equivalent of an elephant graveyard: One good rain can wash away the dirt and expose the bones of scandals past. And this August did not disappoint. Thanks to the relentless investigative work of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), we are learning that the Hillary Clinton email case may not really be settled. A staff memo updating the two senators' long-running probe discloses that the FBI — the version run in 2016 by the now-disgraced and fired James Comey, Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok — failed to pursue access to "highly classified" evidence that could have resolved important questions. Clinton's Deliberate, Felonious Actions Harmed National Security. Earlier today, my good friend and colleague, Bonchie, penned an excellent article about the latest twist in the Clinton e-mail saga, one that demonstrated just how dangerous her actions were to National Security. Please go have a look. Because of his timely article, I thought I might once again review just how corrupt the FBI was, especially former Director Comey, when he "cleared" Secretary Clinton of any criminal wrongdoing. Comey's excuse? Secretary Clinton had no intent to violate the law. Despite the fact that the applicable statute regarding the handling of classified information doesn't require intent, the explainer below will show that there was indeed such intent and a number of people should be doing hard time. Let me be clear at the outset; somebody committed a felony, likely several. New Evidence Unveils Disturbing Facts About Hillary's Email Scandal. Clinton kept classified emails on a private server in violation of Federal law, and the immunity agreements reveal that both Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson were actively involved in the cover-up of these emails as well as in the destruction of evidence. [...] The agreements issued were with DOJ and the FBI. They asserted that Mills and Samuelson would turn over the computers to them, but stipulated that they weren't turning over "custody and control". This critical point is a legal and factual bunch of bunk. [...] Suspects cannot withhold "custody and control" by mere words or lack of consent, as consent is not required. In other words, these agreements are extremely flawed and whomever signed off on them should be investigated and perhaps prosecuted. FBI gave immunity to Hillary lawyer responsible for 33k email deletion. Heather Samuelson testified under oath in a Judicial Watch court-ordered deposition that, contrary to what she told the FBI, she was, in fact, aware that Clinton used a private email account as secretary of state. That's not all. The former Secretary of State's White House Liaison at the State Department, and later Clinton's personal lawyer, Heather Samuelson, admitted under oath that she was granted immunity by the U.S. Department of Justice in June 2016. Samuelson also revealed that, contrary to what she told the FBI in 2016, she was, in fact, aware that Sec. Clinton used a private email account while secretary of state. Comey Hid 'Clinton Emails' Binder In His Office Safe and Had Hillary's Backup Email Device. Former FBI director James Comey had a white binder marked "Clinton Emails" in his office on May 16, 2017, a few days after he was fired, as the Department of Justice was trying to get back the items in Comey's office safe. The State Department and FBI also possessed a "Datto" backup email device for Hillary Clinton's private email server, which a judge ordered released. Michael Bekesha, who waged the Datto case for Judicial Watch, tells Big League Politics that the State Department is "still processing the FBI investigative file," even though Datto contents were ordered released by last September. The FBI Just Dropped New Documents On Hillary Clinton And They Are Really Bad. Late Friday night, we got a document dump from the FBI dealing with the investigation into Hillary Clinton's illegal email server. While we've already gotten ample evidence that she absolutely should have been charged for her mishandling of classified information, these latest revelations are still pretty mind-blowing. After you read them, you are left asking yourself how it was possible that she wasn't indicted. Well, we know why. [...] Starting with Hillary's actions, her criminality isn't even in doubt anymore. Stripping highly classified materials of their markings and then pushing them out via unapproved means is illegal. Nowhere in the statute is their a requirement for "intent" nor could any serious person argue she didn't intend to do what she actively chose to do. While we already knew that, it's pretty amazing to see that even the FBI was admitting it at the time. Shortly after, the full whitewash would go into effect. McCabe: Comey's Draft Statement Exonerating Clinton Two Months before Her FBI Interview Was Not Normal Protocol. "This is the only time I am aware of, sir." "I have not seen that before, sir." "I've never seen that." These are just some of the words utilized by former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe when asked during closed door testimony about an email penned by disgraced ex-FBI chief James Comey circulating a draft statement exonerating Hillary Clinton in the private email server case[,] a full two months before the FBI interviewed Clinton and other witnesses in the criminal probe. Grassley, Graham Put Bill Barr on Notice: DOJ Can No Longer Use Mueller Probe as Excuse to Dodge Questions on Hillary's Email Investigation. Top Senate Republicans are renewing their efforts to get to the bottom of the FBI's [mis]handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private server now that Mueller's investigation has concluded. Mueller's investigation into whether Trump colluded with the Kremlin during the 2016 election also served as a way to block Congressional oversight into Obama's and Clinton's corruption. Now that Rosenstein and Mueller can no longer run defense at the Justice Department, Republican Senate chairs of three very powerful committees are demanding Bill Barr look into the FBI's sham 'Midyear investigation.' Nunes criminal referrals could affect 'two dozen' individuals, as GOP demands answers on apparent FBI stonewalling. As many as two dozen individuals may be implicated in House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes' criminal referrals to the Justice Department arising out of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's recently concluded Russia probe, sources confirmed to Fox News on Tuesday [4/16/2019]. The sources confirmed that the referrals related in part to the anti-Trump dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele, and his work for the Clinton camp and the Democratic National Committee-funded firm Fusion GPS. Meanwhile, three top Republican Senate committee chairmen said Tuesday that the DOJ has 10 days to explain itself as to why FBI investigators looking into Hillary Clinton's email use in 2016 sought access to "highly classified information" they said was "necessary" to complete their probe, but later withdrew the request and cleared Clinton of wrongdoing. Devin Nunes: 'Fourth bucket' of classified emails show info withheld from FISA court. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., revealed the existence of a "fourth bucket" of information related to potential misconduct by the FBI that he wants declassified. On his way out as chairman, as Democrats will take control of the House next year, Nunes said his panel's investigation into the Justice Department and FBI is largely complete. Still, he said the public release of these "buckets" would help give his efforts a sense of "finality." Speaking with anchor Maria Bartiromo on her Fox News program "Sunday Morning Futures [11/18/2018]," Nunes said the first of three "buckets" were the Russia-related documents President Trump walked back from declassifying earlier this year. Mueller's 'Pit Bull' Arranged Meeting With Reporters To Discuss Manafort Investigation. Justice Department documents released on Friday [7/6/2018] confirm that the DOJ attorney known as Robert Mueller's "pit bull" arranged a meeting with journalists in April 2017 to discuss an investigation into Paul Manafort. The documents show that Andrew Weissmann arranged a meeting with DOJ and FBI officials and four Associated Press reporters on April 11, 2017, just over a month before Mueller was appointed special counsel. Manafort's lawyers obtained the documents on June 29 and revealed them in a briefing filed in federal court in Virginia. The attorneys are pushing for a hearing into what they say are possible leaks of secret grand jury information, false information and potentially classified materials from the meeting. Nunes calls for House probe of 42 Obama-era anti-Trump activists. Rep. Devin Nunes is referring 42 Obama administration officials, FBI agents and outside political activists to a House task force for as investigation into how the Obama Justice Department targeted the Donald Trump campaign. [...] The California Republican is asking his fellow GOP legislators to summon for public testimony all 42 — a cast of FBI, Justice Department and State Department officials and outside anti-Trump people with whom they communicated. Devin Nunes Closes In on Corrupt Obama Officials. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes is calling on two of his fellow Republican committee chairman to hold open hearings for 10 former State Department and Obama White House officials regarding alleged surveillance abuses against the Trump campaign. [...] Nunes has investigated the Justice Department, FBI and State Department over the agencies' investigations of Trump campaign associates. The Republican has mostly focused on the DOJ and FBI's handling of the infamous Steele dossier and their applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Nunes and other Republicans have alleged that law enforcement officials improperly used the unverified dossier to obtain the spy warrants while also failing to disclose to federal judges that the document was financed by the Hillary Clinton campaign. Mueller's Kafkaesque Probe. The chattering class's frenzied discussion of the Mueller probe is like listening to George Carlin's old parody advertisement in which he gushes over a product that he never bothers to identify: [...] Turn on the television at any hour and the gibbering about the Mueller probe takes on that tone: endless talk about people "flipping" and so on but without any relationship to the mandate of Mueller's probe. Mueller was supposedly completing a counterintelligence investigation. But almost everything we hear about it pertains to something else. His "collusion" probe is looking at everything but collusion. Historians will look back at this grim farce and wonder how a sitting president could be shafted so badly by his own Justice Department for something he didn't do. The answer they will probably settle on is that Trump was a reviled outsider whom official Washington decided to subject to a Kafkaesque hazing in the failed hope of inducing his impeachment. Letter From Devin Nunes: 17 DOJ and FBI Names Named. Devin Nunes has sent a letter to Chairman Gowdy and Chairman Goodlatte. In it, Nunes refers 17 highly recognizable names to the joint task force of the Committees on Oversight & Government Reform and the Judiciary for interviews. Note that the names cut off at a certain political level. Below Sally Yates at DOJ and below Comey at FBI. This is almost certainly by intent. Without the IG Report on FISA Abuse, it's too early to move any higher. As unsatisfying as this may be to some, I consider this to be a good start. Most of these individuals — but not all — have left their positions so enforcement will prove interesting. FBI may have modified witness reports, misled DOJ watchdog with 'false information,' GOP Rep says. The FBI may have "edited and changed" key witness reports in the Hillary Clinton and Russia investigations, a top House Republican charged in a hearing into FBI and Justice Department misconduct Tuesday [6/26/2018]. Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C, also raised the possibility that the FBI misled the DOJ watchdog in an attempt to hide the identities of FBI employees who were caught sending anti-Trump messages. Did Comey's Informants Fabricate Russian Collusion Evidence? In our nation's worst governmental scandal, Watergate, the Federal Bureau of Investigation heroically kept widespread White House corruption from being concealed, eventually reviving important prosecutions. Sadly, in today's increasingly convoluted moral universe, senior FBI officials, it now appears, have tried to artificially create serious "Russiagate" crimes, thereby becoming implicated in a scandal promising to be nastier than Watergate. Congress presently awaits DOJ documents which may or may not confirm what presently seem reasonable inferences of such FBI wrongdoing. House Approves Resolution Demanding DOJ/FBI Docs. The House Judiciary Committee approved for the first time a resolution Tuesday demanding that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein turn over all requested documents regarding the FBI's handling of the Russia investigation during the presidential election after seven days or face possible impeachment or contempt. The decision to move forward with the resolution came after a year of battles with the Justice Department and FBI to turn over requested documents. The committee voted on party lines 15-11 to pass the resolution directing Rosenstein to comply within the next seven days or face the consequences. Seven Mysterious Preludes of the FBI's Trump-Russia Probe. The Federal Bureau of Investigation formally opened its Trump investigation after Western intelligence assets and Clinton-affiliated political operatives repeatedly approached the Trump campaign and tried but failed to damage it through associations with Russia, a growing body of evidence suggests. Before the FBI began investigating the Trump campaign in an operation code-named "Crossfire Hurricane," there were at least seven different instances when campaign advisers were approached with Russia-related offers. Tyranny Has Finally Arrived in America. Enough with the endless investigations that lead nowhere and leave the guilty unpunished. Enough with absurdity of agencies investigating themselves in order to protect the institution they serve rather than the people. We need to see indictments and trials to restore the foundations of our political order. The president and his Attorney General need to give more support to the Congressional oversight committees trying to do their jobs of holding accountable the abusers of the public trust. Did the FBI Frame Flynn? The criminal case against Gen. Michael Flynn for lying to FBI agents was incredibly weak. [...] Not too many years ago, a claim that the FBI fabricated evidence to facilitate a prosecution would have seemed incredible. Today, given what we know of the corruption of the Bureau under the Obama administration, such a claim appears entirely plausible. This is just one more thread in the slowly unraveling story of the misuse of intelligence and law enforcement agencies by the Democrats to try to frustrate the candidacy of Donald Trump, and to destroy his administration after his election. The FBI Needs to Be Turned on Its Head. This has nothing to do with the everyday men and women of the FBI. FBI Director Christopher Wray should stop hiding behind them like his mother's skirt. This is all about the leadership of the FBI — the seventh floor of the building. There was a culture created and protected that allowed a definitive bias to exist during the 2016 election and beyond in that group. That is on Comey's head and there is no evidence Wray has obliterated that culture. The fact that Peter Strzok and Lisa Page exchanged so many damning text messages on their FBI devices is evidence of that culture. We, in private industry, learned long ago that all of our emails/texts are subject to review at a further time. Strzok and Page most likely knew that because they had seen it used against FBI suspects. They went ahead with their communications anyway. There is only one rationale for their behavior. They thought they would never be looked at. They thought they were above the law because they thought they were the law. Can the FBI be independent? When President Donald Trump appointed Atlanta lawyer Christopher Wray to succeed James Comey as the director of the FBI, my initial reaction was not positive. Wray is a veteran of the Department of Justice and is part of that good-old-boy DOJ network that knows how to protect its own. Indeed, when then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a former U.S. attorney, needed a good criminal defense lawyer — whose millions in fees were paid by New Jersey taxpayers — he hired Wray. Christie was never indicted in the Bridgegate scandal, but defense counsel for those who were sought Christie's cellphone to demonstrate to jurors the governor's involvement in the plot to shut down lanes near the George Washington Bridge for political retaliation. Christie claimed that he gave his phone to federal prosecutors, but they told the court that they did not have the phone. Where was it? In a safe of the Atlanta law firm that employed Wray. Grassley Outlines 'Double Standard' and 'Credibility Problem' at DOJ. "There was some shocking news in the Inspector-General's report," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told the American people on Monday [6/18/2018]. "We already knew about Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and their anti-Trump text messages. Now, in this report, we learned at least three others at the FBI did the same thing." Grassley noted that those five FBI employees accounted for more than 25 percent of the 15-member team assigned to investigate Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. The inspector-general has referred all five of them for violations of the FBI's code of conduct. What do Republicans suspect really happened in the FBI Trump-Russia investigation? The struggle to uncover the FBI's conduct in the Trump-Russia probe has made some congressional investigators deeply suspicious of the bureau. But what do those investigators think the FBI actually did in its investigation of the Trump campaign, Russia, and the 2016 election? First, they're convinced the FBI has something to hide. In the last 12 months, the bureau has, at various times, ignored, slow-walked, resisted, and downright stonewalled congressional requests, not to mention subpoenas, for information on the Trump-Russia investigation. Each time the bureau hunkered down, suspicion grew on Capitol Hill. The FBI seemed particularly reluctant to reveal to Congress not what Russians did, or what people in the Trump circle did, but what the bureau itself did. Dirtier by the Minute: "Alarm Bells Went Off" for Trump Campaign Aide Targeted by FBI. Former Trump campaign aide Michael Caputo joined Sean Hannity to discuss the realization that informants were planted to try and set up Caputo and the campaign in a Russia collusion trap. Caputo describes a call from a man he thinks is Russian or an Israeli who claimed to have dirt on Hillary. Caputo says when he described the call to Mueller, that Mueller knew all about the FBI informant sent to target him. What do Republicans suspect really happened in the FBI Trump-Russia investigation? The struggle to uncover the FBI's conduct in the Trump-Russia probe has made some congressional investigators deeply suspicious of the bureau. But what do those investigators think the FBI actually did in its investigation of the Trump campaign, Russia, and the 2016 election? First, they're convinced the FBI has something to hide. In the last 12 months, the bureau has, at various times, ignored, slow-walked, resisted, and downright stonewalled congressional requests, not to mention subpoenas, for information on the Trump-Russia investigation. Each time the bureau hunkered down, suspicion grew on Capitol Hill. The FBI seemed particularly reluctant to reveal to Congress not what Russians did, or what people in the Trump circle did, but what the bureau itself did. Problems at the Justice Department and FBI Are Serious. What do you do with an FBI agent, sworn to uphold the law, who flagrantly violates the law in a rogue investigation aimed at making a name for himself by bringing down some high-profile targets? Why ... you promote him, of course. At least that is the way the Justice Department answered that question in the case of David Chaves, an FBI agent who serially and lawlessly leaked grand-jury information, wiretap evidence, and other sensitive investigative intelligence to the media in his quest to make an insider-trading case against some celebrities. And when finally called on it, the Justice Department circled the wagons. Rosenstein Won't Allow Grassley to Interview Agent Pientka Who Knows DOJ Likely Altered Mike Flynn's Testimony. [On] Friday May 11, 2018, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein stating Comey testified the FBI didn't think General Flynn lied. Grassley also revealed Joe Pientka was the second FBI agent who joined Peter Strzok on January 24th, 2017 in an ambush style interview to take down General Flynn. Rosenstein refused to give the Senate Judiciary Committee the requested documents. Instead, Rosenstein provided "insufficient" documents prompting Grassley to send a second scathing letter to the Deputy AG. It appears Senate investigators have finally received the 302 notes or evidence confirming Cernovich's February scoop that the FBI summary on Flynn's interview was altered by McCabe. Devin Nunes to DOJ: Hand over docs on alleged FBI informant by Tuesday or it's 'obstruction'. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has set a Tuesday deadline for the Justice Department to provide documents related to an alleged FBI informant looking for suspicious ties to the Russians who spoke with members of President Trump's 2016 campaign. In a letter sent to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Friday, the California Republican demanded the documents be provided to all committee members "and designated staff," which would go beyond top members of Congress which have been invited to view material related to special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. A skeptical chairman Grassley really, really wants to see the Michael Flynn 302. On Feb. 15, 2017 — that would be 16 months ago — Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., asked the Justice Department to turn over the transcript of fired national security adviser Michael Flynn's infamous call with the Russian ambassador, plus other documents related to the Flynn case. The department refused. Some of Grassley's and Feinstein's questions were answered the next month, on March 15, 2017, when the FBI's then-director, James Comey, briefed the committee on Flynn and other matters in the Trump-Russia investigation. It was at that briefing that Comey told lawmakers the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe he lied to them. Secrets Travel Fast in DC. To paraphrase Napoleon's "secrets travel fast in Paris," secrets travel fast in D.C., as we learned this week with the indictment of James A. Wolfe, a 30-year veteran staffer of the Senate Intelligence Committee indicted for lying to the FBI about leaking to, among others, his former paramour, Ali Watkins, an NYT reporter. James A. Wolfe, former Senate intel panel security director, indicted for allegedly lying to FBI. A former security director for the Senate Intelligence Committee — who was in charge of maintaining all classified information from the Executive Office to the panel — was indicted for allegedly giving false statements to FBI agents looking into possible leaks to reporters, the Justice Department announced Thursday night [6/7/2018]. James A. Wolfe, 58, served as the panel's security director for 29 years, according to the feds. Wolfe lied to the FBI in December 2017 about contacts he had with three reporters, the indictment read. He also allegedly lied about giving two reporters non-public information about committee matters. Top Senate staffer arrested in leak probe, after NY Times reporter's records are seized. A longtime staffer for the Senate Intelligence Committee has been arrested on charges of lying to investigators probing the potential leaking of classified information, the Justice Department announced Thursday night [6/7/2018]. A federal grand jury indicted the staffer, James A. Wolfe, 58, on three counts of making false statements in December about contacts with reporters, including providing sensitive information related to the work of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which he served as security director for 29 years. He was arrested Thursday and is expected to appear in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on Friday. Adam Schiff Caught in Huge Lie About Carter Page's March 2016 Interview With FBI Officials. Carter Page says his interview with the FBI in March of 2016, before the Russia dossier was compiled, had nothing to do with Russian collusion or the Trump campaign, rather he was questioned about events that transpired in 2013 in a case where he was a witness in support of the FBI, reports Paul Sperry. This statement by Page directly contradicts Adam Schiff's 10-page memo wherein he claims the former Trump campaign advisor was grilled by the FBI in March of 2016 about his ties to Russia. Pandora's Box: Trump/Russia May Expose Extent of "Five Eyes" Allied Spying. Over the past month, a number of articles have made reference to the timeline surrounding the Obama administration's counterintelligence operation into President Donald Trump's campaign's alleged ties to Russia. Investigations conducted by Congressional and Senate committees are entering the second year and what has been pieced together by investigators — battling for documents every step of the way — challenges the information the FBI and former senior Obama administration have revealed about the investigation. Their evidence is at odds with the DOJ/FBI timeline leaked to various news outlets indicating the investigation began in late summer of 2016. Report: Obama White House Tried to Intrude on FBI's Russia Investigation. The Obama administration tried to take over the FBI's investigation of the Trump campaign, The Hill's John Solomon reported on Fox News Thursday night. And according to Solomon, the FBI began spying on members of the Trump campaign to gather the intelligence that ultimately justified the collusion investigation, weeks or even months before the FBI had a formal predicate. "That's very important. The rules say you can't use sources until you have a predicated investigation. The predication is July 31, 2016," Solomon told Fox host Sean Hannity. The investigative reporter said he had sources and documents backing up his claim that he would be making public in his report in The Hill on Friday. He stressed that informants were making contacts with the Trump officials and providing information to the FBI "much, much earlier than July 31." FBI Spy Stefan Halper's Media Contacts Could Pose A Problem, Retired FBI Officials Say. While working as a spy for the FBI, Stefan Halper interacted on multiple occasions with the media, both on the record and, according to a University of Cambridge researcher, as an anonymous background source. Those media interactions, which occurred between December 2016 and March 2017, could be cause for concern for the FBI, according to two retired senior bureau officials who worked closely with confidential informants during their careers. "This is something that is highly irregular and not something that I would have ever tolerated with any of the folks working for me," retired FBI investigator and CNN analyst James Gagliano told The Daily Caller News Foundation. DOJ Employee Donations Overwhelmingly Favor Democrats. Political donations from those who work at the Department of Justice (DOJ) overwhelmingly favor Democratic candidates so far this cycle, data shows. Individuals at the DOJ have contributed a total of $192,534 so far this election cycle, with $159,800 (83 percent) of this amount going to Democrats. Republicans, on the other hand, have been the recipients of just 14 percent of the total contributions from those at the agency, pulling in $27,129 in donations. [...] DOJ workers handed out nearly $950,000 in total political donations in 2016. Of this amount, $818,985 went to Democrats, or 87 percent of the total donations. Republicans garnered $108,882 in donations from those at the agency in 2016, or 12 percent of all the money given. FBI Had No 'Clear Criminal Predicate' for Trump Campaign Snoops. Spying on President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign for "national security" purposes would not provide the "clear criminal predicate" required to authorize such surveillance, retired FBI Special Agent James Wedick said Wednesday [5/23/2018] on "The Ingraham Angle." "You need to know that the guidelines say: If you're going to use an informant to infiltrate a political organization, you need a clear criminal predicate," Wedick told Fox News host Laura Ingraham. "National security is not a criminal predicate." The FBI Used Its Secret Spy Program To Protect Killers, Jail Innocents, And Screw Victims. Following reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) used at least one spy to secretly surveil members of the Trump campaign, fired former FBI director James Comey lashed out at critics of his agency's activities during the 2016 election. "Facts matter. The FBI's use of Confidential Human Sources (the actual term) is tightly regulated and essential to protecting the country," Comey tweeted on May 23. "Attacks on the FBI and lying about its work will do lasting damage to our country." While Comey's record on truth-telling is decidedly mixed, he is correct that facts matter and that the FBI's use of informants is governed by strict guidelines. How and why many of those guidelines came to be are important facts that the American public deserves to know as it considers revelations that the FBI used wiretaps and spies to surveil Donald Trump's presidential campaign, his transition, and perhaps even his presidential administration. What Happened During the FBI Interview With Flynn? FBI Special Agent Joe Pientka, if subpoenaed, will provide testimony regarding the circumstances surrounding his interview with former National Security Advisor Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, sources with knowledge have been telling this reporter for more than a year. And recent reports scattered across social media and some news outlets claiming that Pientka's testimony will bring down former FBI Director James Comey, are not true. For nearly a year, I have reported that Pientka, who at the time I addressed as the second agent in the interview with Flynn, would testify if subpoenaed. But so far Pientka, has not been subpoenaed for his testimony. Pientka and embattled FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, interviewed Flynn on Jan. 24, 2017 about his conversation with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, as first reported here. DOJ Agrees To Allow Congress To Review Requested Documents. The Department of Justice will allow Congress to review highly classified requested documents relating to the FBI's investigation into the Trump 2016 campaign in conjunction with the White House and other agencies, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday [5/21/2018]. "Based on the meeting with the President, the Department of Justice has asked the Inspector General to expand its current investigation to include any irregularities with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's or the Department of Justice's tactics concerning the Trump Campaign," Sanders said. Trump Orders DOJ to Investigate FBI's Campaign Infiltration. As previously reported by TGP's Kristinn Taylor, President Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon he is ordering the Justice Department to investigate whether the Obama administration spied on his 2016 presidential campaign. The order comes on the heels of leaks to the New York Times and Washington Post that the Obama administration had an "informant" make several approaches to three Trump campaign officials, included one that involved an offer of cash and another an offer to "advise" the campaign. Donald Trump Orders Justice Department to Investigate Obama Surveillance. President Donald J. Trump announced his decision to demand an official investigation of former President Barack Obama's administration on Sunday [5/20/2018] for infiltrating or surveilling his presidential campaign for political reasons. "I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes — and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!" Trump wrote on Twitter on Sunday afternoon [5/20/2018]. The fight moves up a notch. The scenario anticipated more than a year ago in King vs. King has advanced to the semi-finals. The Russian collusion affair, which began with the incoming president on the defensive, has now become a set of simultaneous offensives with each side trying to jail the other. "President Trump on Sunday said he would 'demand' a Justice Department investigation into whether the FBI 'infiltrated' his 2016 presidential campaign," USA Today reported. Watergate II: Collusiongate. Unlike Watergate, the current crisis in government/spying/politics doesn't have a memorable name. But for those of us who lived through Watergate it has a certain resonance with that event as well as major differences, imparting a strange sense of familiarity, dislocation, and increasing alarm. This isn't some burglary to get some dirt on the opposing party, and it isn't a threat (unfulfilled) of using government entities to "get" the opposition. This is the marshaling of those government entities by one administration in order to "get" the next, and nearly succeeding. Report: Inspector General Will Declare FBI, DOJ Broke Law in Clinton Email Probe. A new report suggests an imminent Inspector General (IG) report may rule that FBI and Justice Department officials broke the law in their handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Investigative reporter Paul Sperry said Thursday [5/17/2018] that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has "found 'reasonable grounds' for believing there has been a violation of federal criminal law in the FBI/DOJ's handling of the Clinton investigation/s," adding that the top watchdog official has "referred his findings of potential criminal misconduct to Huber for possible criminal prosecution." FBI Used Secret Program To Gather Information On Trump Campaign, No Judge Needed, Report Says. A report released by The New York Times on Wednesday revealed that the FBI, under Director James Comey's leadership, used a secret program that does not require the approval of a judge to gather phone records and "other documents" on Donald Trump's presidential campaign. The report also revealed that a government informant met several times with Trump campaign officials, which validates a March 8, 2018 report from The Washington Post. Conspiracy to Frame Trump 'Unraveling,' Ex-Prosecutor Says. New revelations that FBI agents pressed a Russian oligarch with ties to independent counsel Robert Mueller to help build an election collusion narrative only reinforce the likelihood of a conspiracy to frame President Donald Trump, according to a former federal prosecutor. Joseph diGenova, who served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia under Ronald Reagan, reacted to a report in The Hill that FBI agents met with Oleg Deripaska in September 2016. They were in search of information that Trump campaign boss Paul Manafort was conspiring with the Russian government to throw the presidential election to the Republican nominee. Huma Abedin Laptop Emails and The Non-Investigated Issues Therein. The Department of Justice Inspector General will soon release a report on the government's investigation of Hillary Clinton's mishandling of classified information. It's taken a long time; and with good reason. The scale of the misconduct and criminal activity is staggering. [...] The emails along with the fact that they were on Anthony Weiner's laptop was kept secret and not investigated for four weeks (Sept 28th, through Oct 27th) by top officials at the FBI. Who stalled the investigation and why? Hunt For FBI Mole Intensifies. Previously we reported on a disturbing op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Kimberly Strassel suggesting the FBI had a mole within the Trump campaign. After a battle between House Intel Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein over the release of classified information that was so top-secret that the DOJ refused to show Nunes on the grounds that it "could risk lives by potentially exposing the source, a U.S. citizen who has provided intelligence to the CIA and FBI" — the agency finally relented on Wednesday [5/9/2018], allowing Nunes and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) to receive a classified briefing. Treasongate and the FBI "Source": A Deep Dive on Stefan Halper. Open-source research points to a man named Stefan Halper as the CIA asset tasked with planting incriminating evidence of Russian "collusion" on the Trump campaign. In March, @The_War_Economy presciently foresaw this development. Here's a deep dive into Halper and his involvement with low-level Trump staffers for the sole purpose of advancing the "insurance policy". [...] Americans of every political stripe should stand together to destroy the weaponization of our intelligence assets, hunting every one of these criminals down and prosecuting them. Mark Warner: Trump Aides' Contacts With Russians Could Be 'Coincidences,' Not Collusion. The top Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence acknowledged in a recent interview that contacts between Trump campaign associates and Russians could be "a set of coincidences" rather than collusion. "I'm reserving my final judgement until we've seen all the witnesses we need to see, and we've gotten all the facts. So I'm going to hold off," Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said in an interview with The New Yorker's David Remnick when asked whether he believes that Trump associates conspired with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 presidential election. Warner and North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican chair of the Senate panel, have since Jan. 2017 led an investigation into Russian interference in the election. Did the FBI Have a Spy in the Trump Campaign? Something tells me Glenn Simpson did not make a mistake. Something tells me the co-founder of Fusion GPS was dead-on accurate when he testified that Christopher Steele told him the FBI had a "human source" — i.e., a spy — inside the Trump campaign as the 2016 presidential race headed into its stretch run. When he realized how explosive this revelation was, Simpson walked it back: He had, perhaps, "mischaracterized" what he'd been told by Steele, the former British spy and principal author of the anti-Trump dossier he and Simpson compiled for the Clinton campaign. Simpson gave his testimony about the FBI's human source at a closed Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on August 22, 2017. He did not try to retract it until the uproar that followed the publication of his testimony on January 9, 2018. The latter date is significant for reasons we'll come to. About That FBI 'Source'. The Department of Justice lost its latest battle with Congress Thursday [5/10/2018] when it allowed House Intelligence Committee members to view classified documents about a top-secret intelligence source that was part of the FBI's investigation of the Trump campaign. Even without official confirmation of that source's name, the news so far holds some stunning implications. Among them is that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation outright hid critical information from a congressional investigation. Senator Chuck Grassley Drops Atomic Sledgehammer on FBI — Requests FBI Reports and Testimony From Special Agent Joe Pientka. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley has just dropped a sunlight grenade into the prosecution of Michael Flynn with a jaw-dropping request letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray. Within the letter Chairman Grassley outlines a prior briefing from fired FBI Director James Comey to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and contrasts the false presentations of Comey — regarding Michael Flynn — against recently known evidence. The Insurance Policy, The "EC", The 2016 FBI Counterintel Operation, and The Mysterious Informant. In addition to everyone here, Wall Street Journal Author Kimberly Strassel also smells the familiar aroma of a cover-up deployed by administrative state officials inside the DOJ and FBI. The DOJ is refusing to allow public inquiry into the source John Brennan used to create the "EC". Additionally, the Deep State media advocates, writ large, are working furiously to attack Chairman Devin Nunes for his inquires. Methinks they doth protest too much. Obviously the compliant media, Democrats and second-tier DOJ/FBI officials don't want anyone to discover the source of the 2016 counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign. Newly Released Unredacted Documents Show DOJ-FBI was Protecting Comey. On Friday night [5/4/2018] the Department of Justice released the requested unredacted documents to to the House Intelligence Committee on the investigation of Donald Trump and the interview of Michael Flynn by corrupt agents Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok. The newly unredacted portion of the House Intel Report revealed Comey told lawmakers that the FBI agents who interviewed General Flynn did not detect any deception. This was a complete opposite to what Comey has been telling reporters these past few weeks while promoting his new book. This is another example of a Friday night document dump. The Coup Is Still Underway. Former U.S. attorney and special counsel Joe DiGenova and ex-Secret Service agent Dan Bongino were both masterfully interviewed by Mark Levin last night. The result was stunning. As many of you know, I follow the dual scandals of the DOJ's exoneration of Hillary Clinton and persecution of Donald Trump, eh, rather closely. This interview revealed new information for me, including how Robert Mueller is protecting certain Russian oligarchs from exposure by redacting or concealing their names. I simply cannot state this strongly enough: every American should watch this surgical deconstruction of, for lack of a better term, Obamagate. Please watch it and please pass it along. I am not overstating things when I say that this information is vital to saving our Republic. [Video clip] God Bless Judge Ellis. [Scroll down] I'm caught — as the world is — among three channels. One is Justice with Jeanine Pirro on FNC. She's hot as a pistol tonight. She has Rudy Giuliani and Victoria Toensing — two towering lawyers. They're talking about a federal district court judge in Virginia who has just dropped a bomb right down Mueller's smokestack and it's blowing him up. The bomb is the judge, T.S. Ellis, asking a Mueller lawyer what the heck the Manafort prosecution has to do with the alleged Russia/Trump collusion that started the whole Gestapo chase. The judge asked what Mueller's authority was for the Manafort case. Incredibly, the DOJ attorney said he was not allowed to say. It was a secret. Judge Ellis exploded. In words to this effect he said, "But I'm the judge. It can't be a secret from me why you're in my court." He gave the government two weeks to answer. Preparing for The Inspector General Report on The FBI Investigation of Hillary Clinton. As a result of the known OIG investigative findings already the top FBI and DOJ officials in charge of the Clinton investigation have been fired, demoted or removed from responsibility: Director James Comey (fired), Deputy Director Andrew McCabe (fired), FBI Legal Counsel James Baker (removed — status unknown); FBI investigative Agent Peter Strzok (demoted, reassigned); DOJ special counsel to McCabe, Lisa Page, (removed, reassigned); and DOJ Deputy AAG Bruce Ohr (demoted, twice). Additionally other officials resigned immediately after the preliminary IG findings were made public: FBI Communications Director Mike Kortan (quit); Director Comey Chief-of-Staff, Jim Rybicki (quit); DOJ-NSD DAAG Mary McCord (quit); DOJ Deputy AAG David Laufman (quit). In total, almost no one within the "small group" conducting the Clinton email investigation has survived initial Office of Inspector General scrutiny. Refresh on How DOJ and FBI "Small Group" Officials Intentionally Worked To Clear Hillary. The scale of the misconduct is staggering. John Spiropoulos, a former TV news reporter at WJLA, the ABC affiliate in Washington, DC, has created a series of video reports as a reminder on the background on the crime, the coverup and the corruption. Outrageous Redactions to the Russia Report. Cute how this works: Kick off the week with some "the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted" bombast from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, by which he rationalizes that his defiance of subpoenas and slow-walking document production to Congress — which is probing investigative irregularities related to the 2016 campaign — is required by DOJ policy and "the rule of law." Then end the week with the Friday-night bad-news dump: the grudging removal of DOJ and FBI redactions from a House Intelligence Committee report on Russia's election meddling. Now that we can see what they wanted to conceal, it is clear, yet again, that the Justice Department and the FBI cannot be trusted to decide what the public gets to learn about their decision-making. In No Apparent Rush, the Grand Inquisitor Plods On. Should he wish, Mueller can be at this for the rest of his life, with an unlimited budget, and at taxpayer expense. But this is not justice in any meaningful sense of the term. Rather, it's the sore-loser Left's latest attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election by orchestrating, via deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and St. James Comey, a quasi-legal proceeding to demonstrate that Donald Trump is unfit to sit in the Oval Office, and that therefore his presidency must be ended by any means necessary. The Rape Culture of Politics by Investigation. While it's tempting to joke about the ridiculousness of federal investigators and lawmakers continuing to sniff out a crime that did not happen, it's no laughing matter. [Michael] Caputo said he has incurred about $125,000 in legal fees and he's not done yet. Why All the Secrecy? Many people believe, as I do, that the president should not be subjected to questioning by a prosecutor on the facts as we presently know them. From that premise, however, they argue that Mueller may not subpoena the president, or that the president may ignore any subpoena. Neither of those things is true. A prosecutor has the power to subpoena virtually anyone. Mueller probe is a political counter-revolution to overthrow Trump — It must be defeated. Nearly two years ago, the British people voted for Brexit. They rejected the arguments of the political, business, academic and media establishment, which were united in their support for the European Union and its elitist agenda that favors the rich. Instead, voters chose populism, voting for Britain to become a self-governing, independent nation outside the EU. You can say they were wrong; you can lament their decision. But you can't deny the facts of what happened. But guess what? Denying the facts is exactly what the elitists are trying to do. Special Counsel To Judge: You Don't Have The Authority To Review What We're Doing. Yesterday [5/4/2018], the special counsel had a very tough day in court. Federal district judge T. S. Ellis was openly skeptical not only of the authority of the special counsel to undertake the prosecution of Paul Manafort on crimes that are over a decade old, but he was blatantly skeptical of the honesty of the special counsel as well. It probably wasn't lost on the judge that the special counsel had said in court filings that Manafort had been in contact with Russian intelligence operatives in 2016 and then had to admit, via a Brady motion, that it actually had zero evidence that this was true. Now the transcript has started leaking out and it looks worse than the media reports from yesterday. FBI Delays Release of Communications With Firm That Examined DNC Servers. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has pushed back the estimated completion date of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents pertaining to its communications with the security firm that examined the Democratic National Committee's hacked servers to October. The Washington Free Beacon submitted the FOIA request in July 2017 with the FBI seeking all communication between the bureau and CrowdStrike, Inc., the California-based cyber security firm that examined the DNC's servers following the infiltration that led to the release of John Podesta's emails. The FBI said in December the documents should be available by March. The FBI, which was never granted access to the DNC's servers for inspection, instead relied on the third-party firm that was brought in by the DNC for information regarding the compromised network who concluded that Russia was behind the hack. U.S. judge questions special counsel's powers in Manafort case. A federal judge said Special Counsel Robert Mueller should not have "unfettered power" in probing ties between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia, and accused Mueller of using criminal cases to pressure Trump's allies to turn against him. Earth to Jeff Sessions.... It is staggering to witness the Justice Department go off the rails and barrel toward a showdown with our president over innuendo and manufactured misdeeds. From the beginning of the special counsel appointment and despite Jeff Sessions's recusal, I felt confident that Trump and Sessions had a behind-the-scenes plan to navigate this quagmire. Ridiculous was the notion that Trump's attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was not fully in his camp in light of the glaring double standards of justice demonstrated at every point from before the election to present day. I expected the A.G. to pursue other completely legitimate avenues that might create leverage and pressure on Rosenstein and by proxy, the special counsel, to gracefully withdraw their aggression against the president. And yet we sit here dumbfounded as the witch hunt lingers on. The Process is the Punishment (As Always). There have been exciting developments in the "Russia investigation". There always are, because that is the nature of open-ended money-no-object investigations. But, to me, the most interesting development was the testimony of Michael Caputo, who appeared just before me on Tucker Carlson's show last night. Mr Caputo was, briefly, a very minor Trump campaign aide — and so his life has been destroyed. Of the bureaucracy, by the bureaucracy, and for the bureaucracy. Bullies who abuse their power like Bungling Bob Mueller and Jim Shady Comey co-opted the national press decades ago. Using leaks to take out critics — indeed President Nixon — the FBI created this illusion that it is an independent agency that is some unelected guardian angel of our republic. Comey shattered that image when his agents smashed to smithereens the evidence of Hillary's breaches of national security in an effort to get her elected so Comey could continue his job. The press ignored this story. The FBI Shouldn't Be Above The Law Either. [W]hile it might come as a surprise to many, the Justice Department is not an "independent" entity. Presumably those who work for the DOJ have fealty to law and justice first, yes, but they are subordinates, ultimately, of the president of the United States, who was elected legally and has the identical powers to Barack Obama or George W. Bush. Or, in other words, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein doesn't work for CNN personalities or Vox explainer writers. He works for Trump. Dershowitz: Trump Better Off Challenging a Subpoena Over Sitting Down With Mueller. Alan Dershowitz said Special Counsel Robert Mueller could force President Trump's hand by playing the "subpoena card." According to a new report, Mueller told Trump's legal team that he could subpoena the president to appear before a grand jury if Trump refuses an interview with Mueller's team. It appears to have been the first time Mueller raised the possibility of compelling Trump to testify as part of his investigation into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials ahead of the 2016 election. FBI Has Not Requested Anti-Trump Agents' Personal Email Records. The FBI says it has not requested information from the personal email accounts of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the two bureau officials who exchanged anti-President Donald Trump text messages while working on the investigation into possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia. The disclosure was made in a letter sent May 2 to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Grassley, a Republican, questioned why the bureau has not sought Strzok and Page's personal email records, noting they referred to using private email accounts to conduct government-related business. FBI's James Baker, Lisa Page resign. Two FBI officials — both advisers to former FBI Director James Comey — are resigning from their posts at the agency. James Baker, who served as the bureau's top lawyer until late last year when he was reassigned as an adviser to FBI Director Christopher Wray, is resigning, per the New York Times. He is also being looked at for possibly disclosing classified information with journalists about the so-called Trump dossier, though he has not been charged. FBI-DOJ caught using redactions of House Intel Committee Report to protect their posteriors. The release of a less redacted version of the House Intelligence Committee Report on Russian active measures (AKA "collusion") has exposed abuse of the redaction process to protect the bureaucrats at the FBI and Department of Justice. In theory, redacting of official documents prior to public release is supposed to be solely to protect confidential sources, or protect ongoing prosecutions, or otherwise serve legitimate government interests. Redactions to prevent embarrassment or potentially illegal activities on the part of federal officials is not legitimate. Yet that is clearly what happened when the House Intelligence Committee report was first redacted by the DOJ and FBI. Here Are Three Scary FBI Scandal Factors You Must Know. There are three scary but crucial factors underlying the rapidly growing FBI scandal that most people miss, even though these factors are hidden in plain sight. Recognizing and understanding this trio goes a long way toward explaining what has happened in the scandal — and where it is likely to go next. First, there's Horowitz's revenge. Virtually everybody in the nation's capital is waiting either in fear or in eager anticipation for the upcoming investigative report of Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Horowitz is among the most respected and effective IGs ever appointed, but former President Barack Obama, who nominated him in 2011, may consider that decision among the most regrettable from his eight years in the White House. FNC's Baier Grills Comey Over Dossier, E-Mail, Leaks in Epic Interview. Former FBI Director and new author James Comey has spent the past 12 days on his book tour promoting A Higher Loyalty, the supposed greatness of Comey himself and the lack thereof on the part of President Trump. However, no prior interview compared to his Thursday [4/26/2018] hit on the Fox News Channel's Special Report as host Bret Baier offered a masterfully tough tour de force akin to interviews of yesteryear by the late Tim Russert. Comey Confirms: In Clinton Emails Caper, the Fix Was In. If Comey had not been the FBI director, he would not have had these discussions with the president of the United States about investigations. His memos, clearly, were made in the course of and in relation to his official duties. They were written on FBI-issued equipment. The standard FBI employment agreement unambiguously states: ["]All information acquired by me in connection with my official duties with the FBI and all official material to which I have access remain the property of the United States of America.["] These memos belonged to the government. The information in them belongs to the government. FBI Never Investigated Abedin/Clinton Laptop Emails In October 2016. As many people are aware, CTH has decided to go back through two years of documents, releases, reports, testimony, media interviews; including interviews with fired FBI Director James Comey; question all prior assumptions; re-examine the entire framework within all the known granular DOJ and FBI activity; and finally contrast it all against the full scope of released messaging between FBI Agent Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Within this project some breakout discoveries need to be highlighted. One of those discoveries pertains to the Fox News interview with James Comey and Bret Baier. Time to End the Resistance of the Swamp. The ongoing Mueller "investigation" is not a legal matter. It's a continuation of abuse of power by the Obama administration, which behaved as if Democrats were going to reign forever. The extent of their abuse started to come to light only after the elections. [...] It's clear now that the Obama administration used the FBI to persecute its political enemies. The FBI needs to be investigated thoroughly and be purged of the Obama-Hillary loyalists who conducted these crimes. The first step in such investigation might be to offer FBI agents and officers who observed or participated in such activities to step forward and to tell what they saw or did. But it is also clear that Mueller does everything in his power to prevent such investigation. This alone justifies arresting him and charging with obstruction of justice. James Comey Creates Deeper Legal Jeopardy With CNN Townhall Answer. FBI Director James Comey appears on CNN tonight and digs himself deeper into legal jeopardy. Remember as you watch this answer, on March 20th, 2017, while still officially FBI Director, Comey testified to congress a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign began in July 2016. In an effort to attempt to obfuscate his current legal and professional malfeasance in leaking information, via his leaks to the media, Comey insists he did nothing wrong. However, Comey also states that it would be a violation to leak "information about an ongoing investigation." As Comey describes his leaking of his notes from a conversation with President-elect Trump, he conveniently avoids the contradicting fact that President Trump was a person within the investigation the FBI was conducting. [Video clip] FBI Scandal: Deep State Corruption Of FBI, Justice Was There From Very Start Of Hillary Email Probe. Were the Justice Department and FBI corrupted by their efforts to protect Hillary Clinton and her future chances at the presidency? Recent revelations suggest the answer is an unqualified yes, and now those who cooperated may soon feel the law's sting for doing so. Goodlatte, Gowdy say they struck deal with DOJ for Hillary Clinton probe documents. The Republican chairmen of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee announced Monday that the Justice Department has agreed to provide them with documents related to the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server. The deal was struck after Reps. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., met this month with the U.S. attorney, John Lausch, who has been selected to respond to Republican demands for documents. IG Report: Obama's DOJ Tried To Influence FBI Clinton Foundation Probe. Missed until the Washinton Times put two and two together, the inspector general's report about the leaking and lying of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was the story of Justice Department big shot calling McCabe with the purpose of interfering with the FBI's investigation into the Clinton Foundation: [...] The DOJ Inspector General is already looking into both the FBI and Department of Justice handling of the Hillary Clinton probes. As he has mentioned the phone call as part of his McCabe leaking investigation, it is likely he the phone call will also be part of those probes. FBI Wants to Take 16 Months to Process Only Half of Comey Docs Requested Under FOIA. President of Judicial Watch Tom Fitton was outraged on Thursday [4/19/2018] after the FBI told the watchdog group it will take 16 months to process only half of the Comey docs they requested under FOIA. New emails bolster GOP claims of FBI, DOJ 'coordination' on Clinton case response. Emails reviewed by Fox News from February 2016 suggest the FBI and DOJ worked together to craft a response to a key development in the Hillary Clinton email investigation, amid newly raised Republican concerns about a "concerning level of coordination" between the two agencies during the probe. The emails concern the period after 22 messages with "Top Secret" information were found on the former secretary of state's personal email server. Republican Rep. Mark Meadows cited them in a letter earlier this week claiming former FBI Director James Comey's testimony to Congress — in which he downplayed FBI-DOJ coordination on the Clinton case — may be at odds with documents suggesting "frequent" coordination. Lawmakers Make Criminal Referral on Clinton, Comey, Lynch to DOJ on Steele Dossier. Congressional lawmakers made a criminal referral Wednesday to the Department of Justice Attorney General Jeff Sessions against former senior-level Obama administration officials, including employees of the FBI connected with the unverified dossier alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, as well as those involved in the warrants used to spy on a former Trump campaign volunteer, this reporter has learned. The lawmakers also made a criminal referral on former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and threats made by her DOJ against the FBI informant, who provided the bureau with information on the Russian nuclear industry and the approval in 2010 to sell roughly 20 percent of American uranium mining assets to Russia. Justice Department watchdog to report on Clinton-related FBI leaks. A long-awaited U.S. Justice Department internal watchdog report on former FBI chief James Comey's public disclosures on Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state and whether FBI employees leaked information to try to hurt her 2016 presidential bid is expected to be issued next month. Congress Pursues Clinton for Hiding Fusion GPS Payments. As I reported here, the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission last year alleging that Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee violated campaign finance laws by not revealing their payments to Fusion GPS. In an October 25, 2017 filing with the FEC, the watchdog group accused the Hillary for America campaign and DNC of failing to "accurately disclose the purpose and recipient of payments for the dossier... effectively hiding these payments from public scrutiny." The complaint was filed one day after the Washington Post confirmed that both entities paid Perkins Coie — a politically-connected law firm — to retain Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Donald Trump, which resulted in the infamous dossier. According to the Center, the Clinton campaign and DNC paid Perkins Coie more than $12 million during the 2016 election cycle; all payments were recorded as "legal services." No payments to Fusion GPS were itemized on disclosure reports by either group. Clinton campaign, DNC paid for research that led to Russia dossier. The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund research that resulted in a now-famous dossier containing allegations about President Trump's connections to Russia and possible coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin, people familiar with the matter said. Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research. After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. New emails show Hillary-FBI-DOJ coordination. Newly uncovered emails containing 22 messages with "Top Secret" information found on former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's personal email server indicate that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Justice (DOJ) "coordinated" efforts to devise a response to a major development in her email probe. The recent discovery bolsters Republicans' newly raised allegations that there was a "concerning level of coordination" between the FBI and DOJ during Clinton's private email investigation. "Republican Rep. Mark Meadows cited [the accusations] in a letter earlier this week claiming former FBI Director James Comey's testimony to Congress — in which he downplayed FBI-DOJ coordination on the Clinton case — may be at odds with documents suggesting 'frequent' coordination," Fox News announced. Republicans Call For DOJ Investigation Into Comey, Clinton, Lynch, Strzok And Page. A group of House Republicans are calling for the Department of Justice to investigate a laundry list of former agency heads and people involved in the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email server. The letter is addressed to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah John Huber. It asks that each of these men use their respective powers to investigate "potential violation(s) of federal statues" on the part of former FBI Director James Comey, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Acting Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe, FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI counsel Lisa Page. Obama's Justice Dept. feuded with FBI, agents quit as politics played larger role. Acrimony between the FBI and Department of Justice was so bad in the waning days of the Obama Administration some agents quit the bureau, a former G-man said. Feuds over the direction of investigations — and particularly some of the high-profile politically-involved probes — began to build up as the 2016 election approached, and as the FBI felt pressure from its political masters at the department. Agents in field offices did not trust department lawyers they viewed as Washington bureaucrats, while the department's headquarters, known in the business as Main Justice, felt rank-and-file agents weren't following orders and, at times, strongly disagreeing with superiors. FBI Ignores Warnings on Boston Bombers — Nikolas Cruz — Omar Mateen, But Executes Pre-Dawn Raid For Trump Tape. It seems like every time there is a terrorist attack or a mass shooting we hear later the suspects were being monitored by the FBI prior to the attack. The FBI always has a plethora of excuses as to why they failed to thwart yet another mass shooting or terrorist attack. Oddly enough, the FBI found it necessary to raid Trump's personal lawyer's home at 6 AM for dirt on Stormy Daniels and Trump's [...] "Hollywood Access" [sic] tape. Comey: I Announced the Hillary Investigation Because Polls Showed Her Ahead. In his new book "A Higher Loyalty," former FBI Director James Comey says the reason he announced that the FBI had re-opened its investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server was polling. Yes. Seriously. In late October of 2016, just days before the presidential election, polling was skewing in Clinton's favor. Comey says this subconsciously influenced him to send a signed letter to Congress announcing that the bureau had re-opened its investigation into the former secretary of state. Comey hints at damaging material involving ex-AG Lynch 'still unknown to the American public'. James Comey's cryptic reference in his new book to "a development still unknown to the American public" involving then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the Hillary Clinton email probe is sparking furious speculation inside and outside the Beltway. According to ABC News, Comey writes in "A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership," that he became the public face of the investigation partly because of the mysterious development which he felt could cast "serious doubt" on Lynch's independence. DOJ IG releases explosive report that led to firing of ex-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Andrew McCabe, onetime acting FBI director, leaked a self-serving story to the press and later lied about it to his boss and federal investigators, prompting a stunning fall from grace that ended in his firing last month, says a bombshell report released Friday by the Justice Department's internal watchdog. Inspector General Michael Horowitz, appointed by President Barack Obama, had been reviewing FBI and DOJ actions leading up to the 2016 presidential election. The report, handed over to Congress on Friday and obtained by Fox News, looked at a leak to The Wall Street Journal about an FBI probe of the Clinton Foundation. Time for Mueller to lay it all out. The violent swings of the leaky pendulum make this an excellent moment to call timeout on the Mueller probe. What does he have, where is he going and when is he going to get there? Those are basic questions that need to be answered. The American people deserve facts instead of waters muddied by partisanship, innuendo and special access to biased big-media companies. Mueller's team includes some active Democrats, and whether they are behind the anti-Trump leaks is, for the moment, beside the point. The point is that the leaks are creating a reality all their own about the investigation and the president. What is the FBI Hiding? [Part 2]. The FBI has responded to the letter from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes that I posted here yesterday. In a self-advertised act of magnanimity to Congress, the Department of Justice and the FBI will make an "extraordinary accommodation" to the committee by allowing its members access to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications and renewals. It's very big of them. However, there are limits. With respect to Nunes's specific demand for the electronic communication — "EC" in investigative jargon — that officially kicked off the counterintelligence "collusion" investigation, the Department of Justice and the FBI seem to have drawn the line. The demand for the document, let us recall, dates back to one of the committee's August 2017 subpoenas. Paul Manafort says FBI illegally searched storage unit containing Ukraine files. Paul Manafort, the former chairman of President Trump's 2016 campaign, has asked a federal judge to throw out all evidence in his criminal trial that was obtained when the FBI searched a storage unit that contained materials related to work by him and Rick Gates in Ukraine. Manafort's lawyers on Friday issued a motion to suppress evidence, which would disallow special counsel Robert Mueller from using the evidence from the Alexandria, Va.-based storage unit. "The evidence obtained from the government's search of the storage unit should be suppressed," said the lawyers in the motion. Victor Davis Hanson Discusses the Downstream Effects of Corruption Within Obama's FBI and DOJ. Victor Davis Hanson appears on Fox Business with Lou Dobbs for an excellent interview on the topic of DOJ and FBI political corruption. In the first response from Hanson he instinctively and accurately outlines the scale of the challenge that was/is faced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Hanson frames the context of the myriad of issues very well, and as such represents himself as one of the few big-picture-brains who really gets it. [Video clip] Issa thinks special counsel ultimately will lead FBI-Justice probe. California Darrell Issa said Sunday that existing probes into the Obama administration's FBI and Justice Department "could and will likely lead" to a special investigator, while fellow Republican and South Carolina Lindsey Graham suggested the time is now for a special counsel to lead such an investigation. Issa, a member and former chairman of the House Oversight Committee, the chamber's top investigative panel, made his comments to Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures," after Attorney General Jeff Sessions said last week he would not immediately appoint a new special counsel to investigate Republican concerns involving the FBI and Justice Department. Russians Bragged About 10 Spies Assigned to Clinton; Mueller, McCabe, and Rosenstein Helped Cover It Up. The Uranium One scandal is the gift that keeps on giving: Each new revelation continues to show more and more just how deep the rabbit hole of Clinton corruption goes. An FBI informant has informed several congressional committees that during Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state and leading up to her approval of the deal that handed over control of at least 20 percent of U.S. uranium reserves to Russia, Moscow assigned 10 spies in the United States to cozy up to Clinton to guarantee the deal. And when it came to the attention of the FBI, Clinton had some big names help keep it under wraps. Hey, Mueller, Here's Proof of Election-influencing Collusion With Foreign Nationals. Just so we know our tax money isn't wasted, special counsel Robert Mueller recently handed down vanity indictments against 13 nationals and three entities of the Russian persuasion for, essentially, "trolling" before, during, and after the 2016 election. But what of the far worse election meddlers? Judge Nap: Inspector General Will Find 'Treasure Trove' of Abuses by FBI, DOJ. The probe stems from allegations of surveillance abuse by the FBI and DOJ in efforts to obtain FISA warrants to examine Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. "FBI people who knew they couldn't get a warrant from a judge like me, where the standard is probable cause of crime, go to FISA where the standard is probable cause of talking to a foreign person," Napolitano said on "Fox and Friends." First Investigate, then Dismantle, the FBI. Some on the right were disappointed that Attorney General Jeff Sessions wrote Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, and House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy there would be no special counsel for now in the Hillary Clinton matters (email and Uranium One, one assumes) and the FISA/dossier/surveillance affair. Not so fast. Hiding in plain sight in Sessions' letter was information considerably more important than a special counsel, pro or con. As he mentioned a week ago on Shannon Bream's show but now has made public officially, the attorney general has assigned a senior U.S. attorney to the investigation — John Huber. Importantly, working in concert with the inspector general, Mr. Huber can actually indict people. The Democratic Party Collusion Story Gets Worse. We have barely begun to plumb the depths of the scandal arising out of the 2016 presidential election. James Comey, John Brennan, Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS, the DNC, the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Perkins Coie law firm, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, unknown Russians, Andrew McCabe — the list goes on and on, and it keeps getting longer. Special counsel investigating the FBI. The headline and accompanying story in the Hill made it appear as if Attorney General Jeff Sessions is defying the Senate: "Sessions declines to appoint second special counsel." The story said, "Attorney General Jeff Sessions revealed in a letter to lawmakers Thursday [3/29/2018] that he had declined to name a second special counsel to investigate allegations of surveillance abuse within the Department of Justice, despite pressure from the Republican Party for him to do so." I read the letter. Sessions, a veteran prosecutor, said a special prosecutor isn't necessary. Inspector General Michael Horowitz and his staff of 470 people are handling the investigation in the corruption of the FBI by Barack Obama and company. Sessions named U.S. Attorney John Huber — an Obama appointee — of Utah to handle any prosecutions that may arise from Horowitz's investigation. More Anti-Trump Bias Revealed: Anti-Trump FBI Agents Laughed About Comey Intervening In Election. Newly-revealed text messages between anti-Trump FBI agents show that the agents talked about former FBI Director James Comey intervening in the 2016 presidential election. The texts between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two high-level FBI agents, appear to show they were discussing and laughing about Comey getting involved in the election just days after the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation spying on members of the Trump campaign. What Is John Brennan Hiding? An Obama-appointed Department of Justice inspector general finds that former FBI Director Andrew McCabe lacked candor while testifying under oath about stories he leaked to the press. The IG report goes to the FBI-run Office of Professional Responsibility, which recommends McCabe's firing. Attorney Jeff Sessions fires McCabe. It's true the president taunted McCabe relentlessly on Twitter, but it's pretty clear he had nothing to do with the firing. McCabe's Bogus Witch Hunt Of Jeff Sessions Confirms Worst Fears About FBI/DOJ Politicization. Thousands upon thousands of media reports over the last year and a half have intimated, suggested, or flat-out asserted that President Donald Trump is a traitor who colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton. What this widely held theory lacks in evidence, its diehard supporters in the media and other anti-Trump bastions make up for with their faith-filled conviction of its truth. An alternate storyline has been unfolding over that same time. The basic contour is that claims Trump stole the election by treasonously colluding with Russia are the result of a coordinated campaign that was bought and paid for by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, weaponized by the federal government, and promulgated by a completely compliant media. DOJ Admits They Have a Grand Jury Empaneled in FBI and DOJ Investigation. Today [3/22/2018] chairman Bob Goodlatte sends a formal subpoena to the DOJ (Inspector General Michael Horowitz) for documents regarding the investigation of Hillary Clinton's private email server, potential abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility recommendation to fire former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Mark Levin: Dimwit Republicans Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio Ignoring the Real Election Interference. During a discussion with Sean Hannity on his show last night, Mark Levin picked up the one critical fact everyone seems to be missing or ignoring about Andrew McCabe and the Russia story. The lawyer, radio, and television superstar first explained that the person who colluded with the Russians was Barack Obama. Levin blasted Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio for worrying about "bad cop" Andrew McCabe losing his pension. He is not losing his pension. Democrats and these few Republicans are upset about this "bad cop" and his "mob boss" James Comey. These are bad people, he said. "The director of the FBI, Comey, and the deputy director, McCabe, these were bad cops," Levin told Hannity's audience. "They were politicizing the FBI, they were obstructing certain investigations, they were pressing the foot on the gas peddle in other investigations, they are bad cops!" Bombshell reveal: A grand jury already is hearing evidence on DOJ and FBI scandals. We are on the verge of a huge political explosion. While there have been calls for a special counsel to investigate the DOJ and FBI scandals, and many conservatives have been outraged at the seeming passivity of "Gentleman Jeff" Sessions (aka Sessionzzz in some quarters), it now is clear (as I have already figured) that a grand jury far outside the Beltway already is hearing evidence dug up by DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz, whose report is now believed to be coming in April. Following release of that report, expect heads to explode all over the media, all over the Deep State, and among NeverTrumps. Was The Mueller "Investigation" Actually Created By The Russians? It's Starting To Look That Way. There's mounting evidence to suggest the near-entirety of the Robert Mueller investigation is actually a perfectly executed Russian government chaos operation that would never have been possible without the help of current leaders in Congress and multiple members of the former Obama administration. Jim Jordan: Why did DOJ hide Strzok's link to federal judge? Newly obtained text messages are showing that Trump-hating FBI agent Peter Strzok, well, he was close friends with U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras. Now, the messages are also revealing that Strzok and his FBI lover Lisa Page, she wanted to meet Judge Contreras at a cocktail party. Is that collusion? Now, this is the same judge the presided over a hearing with the former national security adviser, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI. Now, Judge Contreras then later mysteriously recused himself from the Flynn case. [Video clip] The FBI's Blood Feud: "This Is Going To Get A Lot Uglier Before It's Over". For a microcosm of the current madness of American politics, look no further than the weekend meltdown after Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe late Friday. Mr. Sessions acted on a recommendation by the FBI's own Office of Professional Responsibility, but Democrats and the media ignored that and called the firing part of Donald Trump's plot to undermine the FBI and steal American democracy. Mr. Trump then seemingly tried to confirm the accusations with a Twitter fusillade hailing Mr. McCabe's firing and escalating without cause to attack special counsel Robert Mueller. Which triggered another round of claims that Mr. Trump's days in office are numbered, or should be. Is James Comey A Serial Liar? When President Trump accused former FBI director James Comey of lying under oath in a tweet on Saturday [3/17/2018], defenders rushed to Comey's aid. But Comey has been saying a lot of things that are decidedly fact challenged. Former FBI Director Goes On Record: "Comey, McCabe, & Brennan All Corrupt & Everything Leads Back To Obama". James Kallstrom is no joke. With nearly thirty years in the FBI, several of them as the Assistant Director, Kallstrom knows how the agency functions far more than most. So when he says there was a plot to protect Hillary Clinton from prosecution and to illegally influence the 2016 Election people should pay attention. Kallstrom goes on to call the entirety of the FBI investigation against Donald Trump completely phony. Maria Bartiromo's own take appears very much to compliment Mr. Kallstrom's assertions. The Deep State shenanigans run very deep and in 2016 are linked to the Obama White House. Barack Obama wanted a third term. His support-system within the FBI, DOJ, State Department, CIA, the Establishment Media, etc., wanted the same and they all broke the law in their attempt to do it. Donald Trump has managed to reveal much of it. The media continues to ignore it because so many of them are implicated in the illegal manipulations of the public as well. That means it's up to YOU to bypass the media and help to spread the truth of what is really going on. Why is the FBI leadership so incompetent? Think about this — FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe had to wait to retire because he had too few years in the FBI. Yet, he was the Deputy Director. Many agents with 3 years, or even less, time actually investigating cases, become Supervisors at FBI Headquarters. Once they get on the management track, they stay there. Many FBI managers have little investigative experience, which has a catastrophic impact on major cases as these people rise up the ranks. During FBI Director Mueller's tenure, there was a significant period of time when former police and military personnel were intentionally not hired. This had a devastating impact on the FBI's culture. FISA Judge Removed From Flynn Case Had Secret Friendship With Anti-Trump FBI Official Peter Strzok. The federal judge who recused himself from the Michael Flynn case is personal friends with Peter Strzok, the FBI agent who conducted the White House interview in which the former national security adviser has pleaded guilty to lying. The friendship between Strzok and Rudolph Contreras, a judge on the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., is discussed in text messages the FBI agent exchanged with his mistress, Lisa Page. The Justice Department redacted the references to Contreras in 384 pages of text messages provided to Congress. Congressional investigators read the underlying documents and have filled in some of the gaps. The unredacted versions of the texts were obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. A second special counsel should be investigating the FBI leaks. Anyone waiting for final proof that Washington needs a second special counsel got it Friday. The breathless anticipation over whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions would fire Andrew McCabe before McCabe's FBI retirement began was a ridiculous exercise better suited for a television game show. The pressure built because if he survived Friday, McCabe could retire with a lifetime pension estimated to be worth $1.8 million. But if Sessions followed the recommendations of Justice Department lawyers and fired McCabe for wrongdoing before the witching hour, the former deputy director would get no pension and might face a criminal investigation. The absurdity was not negated when Sessions finally fired him late in the evening. Either way he ruled, the spectacle was not worthy of the grave issues involved. Why aren't Mueller, the FBI and DOJ interested in illegal actions that might alter our elections? In announcing the recent indictments against Russians brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told the American people that "there is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity. There is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election." That was good news. The bad news is that the special counsel, the FBI, and the Department of Justice don't seem interested in illegal actions that may actually affect the outcome of U.S. elections. The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) sued Pennsylvania on Monday for concealing numerous cases of noncitizens registering to vote. One Pennsylvania election official testified before the state Legislature that an estimated 100,000 noncitizens are registered in the commonwealth. Obama FBI Officials May Face Charges of Conspiracy, Obstruction of Justice and Contempt of Court. According to the report, DOJ and FBI officials who abused the FISA process could be subject to charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and contempt of court. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of treasonous thugs. The Case For and Against a Special Counsel Investigation of DOJ and FBI. A second special counsel might investigate any or all of the following: possible criminal violations by senior FBI and DOJ officials in obtaining a warrant to spy on a former Trump campaign volunteer, the bureau's handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server to send classified information and whether senior Obama administration officials, including the president, were aware of the use of the unverified dossier to open an investigation into the Trump campaign and possible Russian collusion. The investigations could also be conducted by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who is expected to conclude his much-anticipated report into the FBI's handling of the Clinton server investigation in the next several weeks and who Attorney General Jeff Sessions has asked to investigate possible FISA warrant abuse against Carter Page, who briefly volunteered for the Trump campaign in 2016. FBI, Hillary scandals could have a ripple effect on Wall Street. Again, if you are investing in US financial markets, keep a close eye on developments regarding the FBI and the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation. The markets don't like chaos, and that's what we are headed for. There have been a lot of major developments recently, although most big media organizations are ignoring them. They will soon regret that. A few people are leaving the FBI, but they're not going to prison! Yet. Hillary Clinton's Fingerprints Are All Over The FBI's Investigation Into Trump's Russia Ties. A significant part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's basis for investigating the Trump campaign's Russia ties is looking more and more like a political hit job carried out by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign. Her campaign's fingerprints are on at least three separate pieces of information fed to the FBI, including the Christopher Steele dossier Republicans say formed the basis of a secret warrant obtained to spy on Trump campaign associate Carter Page. A former State Department official confirmed on the record Thursday [2/8/2018] that Clinton associates were funneling information to Steele as he was compiling a dossier commissioned and paid for by the Clinton campaign and DNC. That's on top of the recent revelation that a top Department of Justice official fed the FBI information compiled by his wife, who was working for the firm Clinton and the DNC were paying to dig up dirt on Trump, Fusion GPS. The rogue FBI may collapse. The public is now learning of the use of the FBI to destroy evidence of Hillary's exposure of national secrets while helping to fabricate a dossier to justify spying on the Trump campaign. This is go-to-jail stuff. The problem is, who prosecutes these bad cops? The Dirty Dozen Deep State Operatives Who Have been Demoted or Left the DOJ-FBI Since Election. Ten People Have Been Fired or Demoted from the DOJ and FBI since 2017. How Obama's Hillary Clinton cover-ups destroyed DOJ and FBI. [Scroll down] The announcement states, "There was a problem with Strzok and Page's bureau-issued Samsung Galaxies — that 'firmware upgrades' and other technical issues deleted records of texts sent from not only their phones but many phones across the bureau. We regretfully report that these text messages were lost." This occurred during a crucial time in the Russia investigation that included Michael Flynn's resignation due to lies about his Russian ties and FBI Director James Comey's firing. We now know this statement is not true since the "lost" emails have now magically reappeared. However, the DOJ has decided to withhold, for personal and other reasons, more than 85% of the text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Confirmed: Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal helped spread Russia collusion fever before the election. Earlier this week we wrote about the possible involvement of Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal in feeding information to Christoper Steele, author of the infamous Clinton/DNC funded dossier. That dossier formed a key part of the FBI's presentation to the FISA court to obtain a warrant to surveil Carter Page. "Mike" is Out — Michael P Kortan Quits FBI. Another longtime FBI official quits today. According to Fox News Catherine Herridge reporting, FBI Asst. Director Michael Kortan (aka text message "Mike"), the head of the FBI Public Affairs Office, has announced he is retiring. Mike Kortan was previously exposed by FBI Agent Peter Strozok as having specific information that the investigation into Hillary Clinton was manipulated by the "small group". "Mike's" job was to sell the ruse as a valid investigation. Another longtime Comey aide leaving FBI. The longtime head of public affairs at the FBI — who was a confidant of former director James Comey — is planning to retire, Fox News has learned. A notice went out this week for a retirement get-together for Michael Kortan scheduled for Feb. 15. Since 2009, Kortan has served as assistant director for public affairs, an influential job that controlled media access. He also served under former director Robert Mueller, now leading the Russia probe. The FBI confirmed to Fox News that Kortan is retiring. Tear Down That Wall ... of Silence. As the Obama wall of silence begins to crumble, the FBI's reputation is befouled by its own rash actions, a politicized Justice Department stands revealed as, well, politicized, and the Democrats furiously spin the facts outlined in the Nunes Memo and subsequent revelations, there's only one overarching question left to ask: what made them think they could get away with it? And by "them," I mean the lot of them — the corrupt, partisan officials, the political operatives masquerading as selfless public servants, the intelligence community pooh-bahs who betrayed their trusts, the preening "straight arrows," the talking heads, the Washington bureau chiefs, the White House correspondents, every man jack of whom did his level best to create, run, and disseminate a disinformation operation designed to do one thing: destroy the unwanted and unwelcome presidency of Donald J. Trump. Sudden FBI departures indicate that the jig is up. Choose your metaphor: rats leaving a sinking ship, cockroaches scurrying away from the light, or maybe just people cutting deals to save their butts. Yesterday [2/8/2018] saw the FBI fan feculated. The blandness of this Politico story, titled "Two more officials cited in FBI texts step down," conceals really, really big news. The jig is up. Each of the "officials" who is "stepping down" is leaving under duress and likely facing serious legal consequences for acts that have been disclosed — acts that go to the heart of the fraudulent application for the Page FISA warrant and the obstruction of justice in the Hillary email probe. Russia-Trump Investigation: How Did Hillary Clinton Get FBI, FISA To Do Her Political Dirty Work? Recent revelations point to former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and a secretive group of supporters and hangers-on both inside and outside of the FBI and Justice Department as having a far deeper personal involvement in the investigation than first thought. Fears of a politicized and manipulative "deep state" are looking less paranoid by the day. The involvement of Hillary Clinton campaign aides in both the FBI's and Robert Mueller's investigation of Russia's supposed ties to the Trump campaign in 2016 now seems deeper, and more nefarious, than first thought. Disgraced FBI Agent Lisa Page Also Trashed Pro-Lifers: 'I Truly Hate These People'. Disgraced former FBI lawyer Lisa Page not only has a strong distaste for President Trump, but also pro-lifers. According to LifeNews, on page 13 of the Interim Report by Sen. Ron Johnson titled "The Clinton Email Scandal And The FBI'S Investigation Of It," released yesterday [2/7/2018], there is an "exchange between FBI senior lawyer Peter Strzok, Page's co-adulterer, and her about pro-life Americans." Simply put, Page not only dislikes the pro-life movement but "truly hate[s] these people," making it personal. How The Media Buried Two Huge FBI Stories Yesterday. For more than a year and a half, the media have gone all-in on reporting every possible angle of President Donald Trump's alleged collusion with Russia. No story update has been too small, no encounter with a Russian too inconsequential, and no anonymous source too sketchy to generate outsize coverage and histrionic claims from major media. But as the Russian collusion story disintegrates, another interesting story ascends. Investigations by multiple congressional committees as well as an investigation by the inspector general of the Department of Justice have shown irregularities in the handling of the most politically sensitive probes in recent memory: the investigation into Hillary Clinton's mishandling of classified information while secretary of State and the investigation into the Trump campaign's alleged nefarious ties with Russia to meddle in a U.S. election. FBI Missed Clinton Emails Openly Marked Classified, Wanted To Conclude Probe Before IG Caught Mistake. The FBI didn't notice that some emails from Hillary Clinton's private email server were marked classified with a "(C)" when they were sent — something that seemingly would have been one of the first and most obvious checks in an investigation, and one that FBI agents instantly recognized put the facts at odds with Clinton's public statements. The Intelligence Community Inspector General spotted it after the FBI missed it, texts between FBI agent Peter Strzok and his mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, reveal. "Holy cow," Strzok wrote, "if the FBI missed this, what else was missed?" Peter Strzok Savages Chelsea Clinton in Newly Released FBI Text Messages. FBI lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page are in hot water after their text messages were blasted out to the public. The two were caught disparaging Trump, Gowdy, 'hillbilly' Virginians and many other people. Strzok also savaged Chelsea Clinton leading up to the DNC convention in late July of 2016 and then again during the convention. Read FBI Texts Of Agents Hating On Trump While Supporting Illegal Immigration. These are/were high-ranking FBI officials charged with responsibilities like counter-intelligence and yet when you read their communications you are struck by how dumb/immature they are. They are left-wing, yes, but also oddly adolescent in how they view the world around them. Spoiled, petulant, and thinking their version of morality is all-important. They helped orchestrate the sham investigation into the very real crimes of Hillary Clinton and then were deeply involved in the real investigation into the false crimes they have attempted to manufacture against POTUS Trump. Sr. Congressional Oversight Member: Everything From Fast & Furious, Benghazi, IRS, & Other Obama Scandals Connected To Corrupt DOJ & FBI. Congressman Paul Gosar didn't hold back in a recent interview and he's now begging the American people to pay more attention and demand answers from their political leaders. According to Gosar, the Obama White House micromanaged everything from drone attacks to illegal surveillance on political opponents and was able to do so via very carefully placed DOJ and FBI firewalls that to this day continue to insulate Barack Obama and other Obama-related officials, from justice. Exclusive — Rep. Paul Gosar: Obama's Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS Scandals All Connected to DOJ, FBI Corruption in Trump Probe. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), a leading conservative member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told Breitbart News Daily on Wednesday that he believes that there is an interconnectivity between various high-profile Barack Obama-era scandals and the latest revelations about corruption at the Department of Justice and FBI. FBI 'needs to clean house,' former agents say. Former FBI agents say it may take a long time to wash away the stain of political-bias accusations lobbed against the bureau, which has long been viewed as the nation's premier law enforcement agency. Criticism of the storied bureau has been bipartisan. Republicans point to accusations that the agency mishandled the justification for spying on a Trump campaign figure, and Democrats are furious at the FBI's investigation of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over her email and private server while she headed the State Department. In between are a slew of embarrassing text messages from an agent involved in both the Trump and Clinton investigations, revelations of top officials' partisan ties, and a wave of demotions and ousters. Flashback: President Obama Promised 'No Political Influence' in FBI Investigations 'Period. Full Stop.' On April 10, 2016, former President Barack Obama vowed that there was no political influence on any investigations in the FBI. "I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI, not just in this case, but in any case," Obama said. "Full stop. Period." Obama made his comment in an interview with Fox News reporter Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. Also posted in the catalog of Obama's lies. Explosion over the Washington Swamp. The first director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, was at the helm for almost 50 years. During this time, the FBI turned from a small agency that dealt with federal crimes to one of the leading political forces of Washington. Hoover transformed the FBI from a criminal investigation agency into a criminal and political investigation agency. The files he collected over the years (both real and imaginary) made the FBI a powerful lever of political influence. Probably, Hoover could have become president if he wanted to. But he played the role of the "Gray Eminence" until the end. Nunes memo raises question: Did FBI violate Woods Procedures? There are strict rules requiring that each and every fact presented in an FBI request to electronically spy on a U.S. citizen be extreme-vetted for accuracy — and presented to the court only if verified. There's no dispute that at least some, if not a great deal, of information in the anti-Trump "Steele dossier" was unverified or false. Former FBI director James Comey testified as much himself before a Senate committee in June 2017. [...] Presentation of any such unverified material to the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to justify a wiretap would appear to violate crucial procedural rules, called "Woods Procedures," designed to protect U.S. citizens. An open letter to the FBI agent who resigned because of Trump. Until recently Josh Campbell was an FBI special agent. He was appointed in 2008 and stationed in the Los Angeles field office. He also once served as a special assistant to James Comey. He is now most well known for a New York Times op-ed, "Why I am leaving the FBI." In the wake of Comey's firing last May, he wrote another piece for USA Today — a glowingly sympathetic tribute to the just-relieved director, "James Comey is no showboat." What struck me odd at the time — having retired in 2015 after serving for 25 years in the FBI agent and executive management ranks — was this: Who afforded a GS-13 bureau employee the privilege to have a personal opinion piece published? Comey's Former Special Assistant Lands Gig at CNN After Resigning From FBI and Trashing Trump. Josh Campbell quit the FBI last week. Then he wrote an op-ed for The New York Times where he complained about people exposing the corruption and criminal acts by agency leaders. "I am reluctantly turning in my badge and leaving an organization I love," Campbell wrote in the NY Times op-ed. It turns out this precious snowflake was crooked Cop Comey's special assistant. I am proud of the FBI. As this case against the misuse of the FBI and the intelligence community develops, I realize that without good, honest agents in the FBI, we would have never known, because Hillary would be president. [...] After Trump's election, Obama and company foolishly tried to use the deep state to bring Trump down. Instead, they should be sweating things out. You see, the good guys in the FBI (and elsewhere) are not letting this die. Comey scorched the bureau's reputation. Some good people in the bureau are fighting back. FISA Court Judge James Boasberg Rules Comey Memos Will Remain Secret. The media are pointing out that a Federal District Court Judge, has ruled against the release of the memos former FBI Director James Comey wrote to himself while acting head of the FBI. However, one little thing they fail to notice: [...] Keep calm and Comey on. CNN, USA Today, the Daily Caller, Judicial Watch and other outlets brought a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the FBI to obtain copies of the memos former FBI Director James Comey wrote to document his conversations with President Trump. Comey, you may recall, strategically leaked a memo or two to his friend Daniel Richman, a professor at Columbia Law School, under orders to leak the contents to the New York Times. When President Trump fired Comey, Comey sought the appointment of Special Counsel to remove Trump from office. And not just any Special Counsel — Comey desired the appointment of his friend Robert Mueller. Richman followed orders. He called the Times. He read parts of one or more of the memos to the Times. The Times published a page-one story by Michael Schmidt with Comey's account. The appointment of Robert Mueller as Special Counsel ensued. FBI hired dossier author Steele to investigate Trump, fired him for lying about media leaks. The FBI officially authorized payments to Christopher Steele, who wrote the infamous Trump-Russia dossier, but then fired the former British spy for lying to agents about his covert leaks to the news media. The sequence of events is outlined in the declassified memo released Friday by Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The Nunes memo is the first official confirmation that the FBI hierarchy made a decision to start paying Mr. Steele and why the deal fell through. Justice Department witnesses in public have declined to confirm such a deal. Other Secrets of the FBI. During these last few days, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been the center of attention as perhaps never before. As this is being written, a memo may be released pertaining to the FBI that may prove to be the most scandalous of all time. This article seeks not to reveal classified or formerly classified material, but to impart a better understanding of recent events relating to the FBI. Some of the topics covered are secrets in the sense that many people who should know better have fixed ideas that are wrong about the FBI. Other topics are simply not known to the general public. In both cases a better understanding of these topics will allow for a better and more-informed general discussion concerning all matters pertaining to that institution. Why the FISA memo could lead to perjury convictions of Comey & Co.. The 2018 Groundhog Day release of the Nunes FISA memo was preceded by partisan and establishment objections that its disclosure would somehow jeopardize ... something. The contents of the memo now show the objections by anti-Trump forces in this historic matter were certainly a case where they "doth protest too much." J. Marsolo explains why FISA warrant procurers James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates, Rod Rosenstein, and Dana Boente have reason to be nervous: [...] The Center of the Web. [Scroll down] The conduct of Lynch, Comey, Strzok, Page, McCabe, and others did not occur in a vacuum. There was a purpose and direction to it. The first question is, who benefits? The answer is, Hillary and Obama. The second question is, why did Lynch, Comey, Strzok, McCabe and others act to benefit Hillary and Obama? They did not risk their careers to do things they knew were illegal unless they were motivated to do so by their superiors, and they believed they would get away with it because they expected Hillary to win the Presidency. Obama set the stage when he announced publicly at the beginning of Comey's investigation that Hillary made a mistake but did not intend to violate the law, and did not endanger national security. This was Obama's marching order to Lynch and Comey. Comey's exoneration letter reflected Obama's statement. Tip of The Iceberg. For several years the U.S. justice department has maintained an attitude of non-accountability within its ranks. The Obama years elevated that attitude and provided multiple examples of a DOJ gone rogue. A complicit media enables that attitude by engineering a false narrative the U.S. Justice Department was/is an independent fourth branch of government; unaccountable to congress and entirely separate from the executive branch. The House Intelligence Memo is simply using the example of currently known FISA abuse to open the door and show the U.S. electorate how corrupt this unaccountable institution has become. Behind that door are very uncomfortable realities for all of those who constructed the weaponized agency; and also those who have benefited from it. FBI to Trump White House: Please Block The FISA Memo That Could Expose Us For Spying On You. The four-page memo is seen by some as a document that could offer clarity over whether the FBI used the shoddy Trump dossier compiled by former MI6 operative Christopher Steele, whose was contracted by research firm Fusion GPS — which was given money for this opposition research project by the Hillary campaign. It wasn't corroborated and on top of that, Steele is said to have given the FBI another dossier compiled by a Clinton political operative, Cody Shearer, which also wasn't verified. So, did the FBI/DOJ secure FISA warrants on members of the Trump campaign by presenting before the court unverified documents? Ron Johnson wants communications from 16 new DOJ and FBI employees, including James Comey and Andrew McCabe. Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson has requested the Department of Justice turn over communications from 16 FBI and DOJ officials, including former Director James Comey and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. In a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein sent Wednesday [1/31/2018], the Wisconsin Republican requested "all documents and communications" — which includes emails, memos, notes, texts, iPhone instant messages, and voicemails — from 16 employees between January 1, 2015, to the present. The request is part of the committee's broader probe into how the FBI handled its investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. Intelligence Recognizes Presidential Authority — A Case of Too Little, Too Late. The FBI's top leadership — whose careers, business dealings, politics, marriages and extramarital affairs intertwine — invested itself incompetently and illegally into the 2016 election campaign against Donald Trump. In part to cover itself, it launched the so-called "Russia probe." Its members are personally, deeply interested in keeping the public from seeing the documents concerning these activities. They raised the familiar shield: release would compromise the sources and methods of national security. The House of Representatives' Republican majority wanted the documents made public, issued a subpoena for them, and was prepared to jail senior FBI for contempt had they not complied with it. The House compromised, being satisfied by viewing them and making a summary, which it has voted to make public. The FBI Has 'Grave Concerns'? So Do I. I have grave concerns about the politicization of the Department of Justice and the FBI under the Obama administration, which I have been writing about since 2010. [...] If there are "material omissions of fact," the Democrats' responsive memo no doubt will reveal them. Good: let's lay the cards on the table. The relevant fact here is that the FBI is no longer claiming that there is a national security problem with releasing the memo, only that it will put the FBI in a bad light. Second Dossier by 'Creepy Clinton Confidante' Raises Doubts About FBI's Trump Probe. Reports that the FBI has been utilizing a second dossier in its investigation of unsubstantiated claims of collusion between Russia and Donald Trump's presidential campaign raise more questions about the credibility of the federal bureau's already controversial probe. According to a report in the Guardian citing "multiple sources," the second memo in question was authored by Cody Shearer, a shadowy former tabloid journalist who has long been closely associated with various Clinton scandals. Former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova: FBI Going Through Worst Period in Its History. Former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Joe DiGenova Monday evening said that the FBI was going through the worst time in its history and predicted that a federal grand jury would be convened that was "not going to be pretty." DiGenova blamed former FBI director James Comey, outgoing deputy director Andrew McCabe, and everybody else at the senior levels at the FBI for this "disgraceful moment for the bureau." He added that after working with the bureau for over 30 years, the fall from grace of the people working there "truly saddened" him. "Make no mistake about it," the former federal prosecutor told Fox News' Laura Ingraham. "This was a plot to exonerate Hillary Clinton illegally, and then if she lost the election, to frame Donald Trump with an illegal crime." Major Revelations Coming in FBI Bias/Corruption Scandal. If you were beginning to buy the media narrative that the GOP was simply chasing a "fake" conspiracy and attempting to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation... don't do it. There is more to the congressional investigation into the FBI and DoJ than the media is letting on. How do we know? Because this is the first time that we aren't seeing any major leaks from the Democrats involved in the investigation. If there was "nothing" to this investigation, do you have any doubt that the Democrats would have already leaked the evidence that it was a "nothing-burger?" Of course they would have. Paul Ryan calls to 'cleanse' the FBI, backs surveillance memo release. House Speaker Paul Ryan called Tuesday [1/30/2018] to "cleanse" the FBI as he openly backed the release of a controversial memo that purportedly details alleged surveillance abuses by the U.S. government. "Let it all out, get it all out there. Cleanse the organization," Ryan, R-Wis., said. Look Who Turned on the FBI!. Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer has lost his confidence in the FBI. Fleischer says he used to support Comey on the Hillary investigation, but now thinks it was all a sham. Does the Washington Post understand the 'rule of law'? The Washington Post editorialized that Republicans are trying to undermine the rule of law because they dare question the FBI and Justice Department on their motives and methodology used to justify spying on a political opponent. Evidence now clearly shows the Justice Department did everything they could to elect Hillary and destroy Trump, abusing the FISA Court to weaponize the nation's intelligence and law enforcement apparatus. House Intelligence Committee opens investigation into DOJ, FBI. The House Intelligence Committee, led by Republicans, has opened a new investigation into both the Department of Justice and the FBI. Ranking Member Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told reporters the Democratic minority was informed of the apparently new investigations Monday night [1/29/2018] "for the first time." According to committee rules, the majority has to consult with the minority before opening an investigation. Schiff said Monday night [1/29/2018] there was no such consultation. Why Obama pardoned Gen Cartwright on his last day in office. Obama pardoned Gen Cartwright on his last day in office, for leaking secrets to the NYT about Stuxnet (the US-Israeli cyber attacks on Iran). Oh — and if this incredible thread is true, he just happens to be the grandfather of Peter Strzok's first cousin, Devin. Cartwright, 'Obama's favorite General', was a key member of Obama's natsec team and head of the U.S. Strategic Command. His leak to the media wasn't revealed until 2016. He later pleaded guilty for lying to FBI agents pursuing an investigation into the leak. In March 2015, the Washington Post reported that the sensitive leak investigation had "stalled amid concerns that a prosecution in federal court could force the government to confirm" information about the highly classified program. Who was the investigator? Rod Rosenstein. FBI agents' texts reveal Hillary Clinton probe likely fixed. The FBI is still coming under scrutiny, as some of the newly found text messages between two FBI officials have been released, and they show that the agents were apprehensive about going after Hillary Clinton. And on Friday [1/26/2018], Republican lawmakers responded to the messages, House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy telling Fox News that it "doesn't appear anyone wanted her charged." "Now we know the fix was in, and I think the logical thing is, if the fix was in on the Clinton investigation, and if these same people — the top people at the FBI — started and ran the Trump-Russia investigation, might there be some bad things going on there as well," Rep. Jim Jordan asked while on Fox and Friends on Friday. "And as you look at these text messages, it sure looks like there is." FBI's Secret, Anti-American Society. Deep State operatives dominate the FBI. They have never worried about discovery. They believe they are too big to indict, and that they are somehow above the law. Except, now, the FBI is under fire, and under examination, and the liberal left's wagons are circling the agency, not only to hide the corruption, but to keep the public from learning that a secret society of leftism is running rampant through the nation's top bureau of investigation. They are trying to even blame the Russians for the FBI's crimes, but fall short drastically. Why aren't the Democrats horrified by the corruption at the FBI and DOJ? It is becoming clearer by the day, after over a year of investigations, that the Obama administration did indeed weaponize the DOJ, the FBI, the CIA, the ATF, the IRS and the NSA. Over those eight years, each of the above agencies was transformed into an arm of the Democratic Party tasked with crippling the opposition and abrogating the Constitution. Since all of the mainstream media already were arms of the DNC, it is well and truly a miracle that Donald Trump prevailed throughout his campaign to win the election, as the entire DC bureaucracy and media were aligned against him. Most of them still are. Those law enforcement institutions in which Americans have put their trust and faith for many decades have been thoroughly compromised by a group of bad actors at the top, self-appointed arbiters of electoral politics. Why Trust the FBI? Another big tranche of missing communications? Really? When the IRS was in trouble for targeting tea-party organizations and other conservative groups in the run-up to the 2012 election, thousands of emails — evidence under subpoena — went missing. John Koskinen, then acting commissioner of the IRS, lied to Congress about how and why that happened, a fact he was later forced to acknowledge. As a legal question, the result of all that malfeasance — destroying evidence — was precisely squat. Lois Lerner walks the streets a free woman with a fat federal pension, and John Koskinen is perfectly comfortable showing his face in the daylight. And now it is the FBI's turn. The Sad Decline of the FBI. The FBI scandals continue to unravel. Scott has chronicled the saga of the missing Strzok/Page text messages, now apparently on the road to recovery. The FBI has continued to stonewall Congressional investigations, to the point where Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Charles Grassley says the FBI is playing "a bureaucratic game of hide the ball." And House Republicans have prepared a four-page memo that apparently summarizes the FBI's malfeasance in connection with the fake Trump dossier. Some who have read it say it may lead to criminal prosecutions within the Department of Justice. DOJ is demanding a look at the memo, but so far House Republicans won't turn it over. Why? Because they know what Justice bureaucrats will do with it. They will leak it to their friends at the New York Times and the Washington Post so they can preemptively attack the memo before the public gets to see it. As walls close in on FBI, the bureau lashes out at its antagonists. There are two overarching issues. First, there's the alleged improper use of politically-funded opposition research to justify secret warrants to spy on U.S. citizens for political purposes. Second, if corruption is ultimately identified at high levels in our intel agencies, it would necessitate a re-examination of every case and issue the officials touched over the past decade — or two — under administrations of both parties. This is why I think the concerns transcend typical party politics. It touches everybody. It's potentially monumental. Senator Chuck Grassley Sends Letters Requesting Information. As part of their ongoing oversight efforts to ensure that the FBI's law enforcement activities are free of improper political influence, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) yesterday sent six letters seeking information and documents regarding Christopher Steele's work on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary for America. The letters seek information and documents relating to those political organizations' knowledge of and involvement in Mr. Steele's work and his reported interactions with the FBI while he was working on behalf of these political organizations. Forensic Experts Retrieve 'Ghost Texts'. The Inspector General has recovered the Samsung 5 cellphones of two embattled FBI agents at the center of ongoing Department of Justice and Congressional investigations. The two agents are under scrutiny for their involvement in the Special Counsel's investigation into President Trump and alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 election. The DOJ's Inspector general is now retrieving some of the missing five months of crucial text messages exchanged between the pair of FBI agents using forensic experts to track 'ghost texts,' left behind even after they are deleted from the devices, former and current law enforcement officials told this reporter. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte Discusses Justice Department Corruption. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte is a key figure in the overall investigation and reform effort needed within the U.S. Justice System because the House Judicial Committee holds primary oversight over the U.S. Department of Justice. By statutory construct the DOJ and FBI are directly and primarily accountable to Chairman Bob Goodlatte and the House Judicial Committee, on all matters. This primary oversight structure is why Chairman Goodlatte and DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz are working so closely during the ongoing justice department investigation. The FBI Is Looking Guilty In Russia Probe. As Special Counsel Robert Mueller's vast and fruitless investigation into supposed ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government drags on, it's the FBI itself that appears to have been engaged in nefarious activities. Sessions Has No Choice But To Appoint A Special Counsel To Investigate DOJ, FBI. It is long past time for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appoint a special counsel to investigate the possibility of widespread and systematic corruption, obstruction, leaking, and collusion within America's law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The leadership of the FBI and Department of Justice have made clear, through their ongoing obstruction of congressional investigations and oversight, that these agencies simply can not be trusted to investigate or police themselves. The Stench at Obama's DOJ and FBI. For a brief, shining moment, CNN paused in its nonstop coverage of everything it loathes about President Trump for some actual "breaking news." One of the network's reporters had noticed that Congress was looking into malfeasance and political corruption at the Obama-era Department of Justice, FBI, and intelligence agencies. This is still news to most mainstream outlets. There are now three major congressional investigations, peeling away layers of political bias, unequal application of the law, and, perhaps even felonies by senior officials who may have leaked classified documents, obstructed justice, and violated Fourth Amendment guarantees against unreasonable search and seizure. FBI Official: FBI Agents Threatened Physical Harm to President Trump In Missing FBI Texts. A high-ranking FBI official confirms a number of the missing 50,000 FBI text messages — as well as other text and email messages among FBI brass — reportedly discussed initiating physical harm to President Donald Trump. The FBI official urged the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — which oversees the U.S. Secret Service — to launch an investigation of the Justice Department, the FBI and all text messages missing and otherwise that threatened the President. "This is dangerous territory and all FBI text messages and personal phones should be examined," the official said. "It would reveal some frightening conversations." Texts surface; FBI officials worried abt being too tough on Hillary during email investigation. After reports surfaced earlier this week that five months of text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page disappeared and several difference excuses later as to how it could have occurred, the DOJ's Inspector General reported earlier today that the text messages are in the process of being recovered. The result, additional text messages from October 2016 revealed that former FBI Director, James Comey thought that Andrew McCabe should recuse himself from the Clinton investigation... for starters. Talk about a can of worms. In the meantime, Progressives are becoming more bitter and hateful by the hour, a true sign of their desperation. On Capitol Hill, growing frustration with FBI secrecy. Republicans in both the House and Senate are growing increasingly frustrated with the FBI and Justice Department over tight restrictions on classified and other confidential information in the Trump-Russia affair. The restrictions mean the FBI and Justice Department control what congressional investigators may see; under what conditions they may see it; and what they may make public. The practical result is that voters remain in the dark about hugely consequential events going on in Washington. FBI Text Said To "Directly" Link Obama To Illegal 2016 Election Tampering. By now it is no secret to those paying attention that when POTUS Barack Obama weaponized federal intelligence resources to try and sway the 2016 Election in favor of the Democrat candidate of his choosing — Hillary Clinton. It is the same kind of illegal use of federal entities to go after political enemies the Obama administration utilized previously with the IRS, the EPA, etc. This time, though, Mr. Obama might actually have been caught with the evidence to prove it. What Do We Do About the FBI? Suppose what many are now suspecting is completely true — that the FBI, or parts of it, exonerated Hillary Clinton and her cohorts with a mock investigation, attempted to swing our presidential election against Donald Trump and then continued to undermine the new administration after they had won with illegitimate claims of Russian collusion orchestrated by sleazy political lowlifes? While this is not quite Stalinist — no one was tortured in Lubyanka or sent to the Gulag for life — it's not all that distant. It's tantamount to an internal coup d'état that is still ongoing. The Problem Isn't Just Corruption at the FBI and Main Justice, It's Also The Media. Over the past year we have learned that a significant number of people within the DOJ and FBI have been the source of leaks to the media. Almost all of those leaks built on lies. Reports have confirmed that FBI Director James Comey, his chief legal counsel, James Baker as well as his chief-of-staff James Rybicki have all been leaking to media outlets. In addition, FBI Agent Peter Strzok and DOJ/FBI Attorney Lisa Page have been identified as leaking stories to Politico, the Washington Post and New York Times. Adding to that mix, Asst. AG Sally Yates, Asst. AG John Carlin and a host of Main Justice officials were also participating in leaks; all leaks based on self-interest. Evidence suggests a massive scandal is brewing at the FBI. During the financial crisis, the federal government bailed out banks it declared "too big to fail." Fearing their bankruptcy might trigger economic Armageddon, the feds propped them up with taxpayer cash. Something similar is happening now at the FBI, with the Washington wagons circling the agency to protect it from charges of corruption. This time, the appropriate tag line is "too big to believe." Yet each day brings credible reports suggesting there is a massive scandal involving the top ranks of America's premier law enforcement agency. FBI "Small Group" Key Figure, James Rybicki, Quits — Here Comes The Lois Lerner Manuever. [James] Rybicki was the key figure in circulating and coordinating the "Clinton Exoneration Statement" read by Director Comey. For Clinton endeavor Rybicki was the hub collecting and dispatching communication as the 'talking points' were constructed, edited, refined and ultimately finalized. Additionally, Rybicki was the communication hub surrounding the Clinton-Lynch 'Tarmac Meeting' discussion points that led to public statements therein by the FBI and ultimately Loretta Lynch's public statements about distancing herself from the investigation. The feds repeatedly manage to lose or intentionally destroy evidence against powerful people the Deep State supports. A computer glitch supposedly destroyed five months of text messages of anti-Trumpers at the FBI. Sure it did. [...] Since the government loses and destroys so many records that would hang powerful people, why should we believe they won't destroy documents that would exonerate people they want to hang? Journalists should stop pretending they believe in equal justice for all since they are so willing to look the other way for people they support. Former Federal Prosecutor Outlines Scope of FBI and DOJ Corruption. Former federal prosecutor Joe diGenova outlines the majority of the events behind the unlawful surveillance of Donald Trump and each of the participating members within the FBI and DOJ corruption. In essence, during this 30 minute discussion, diGenova outlines much of the back-story and how FBI officials Bill Priestap, Peter Strzok, Jim Baker, Andrew McCabe and Jim Comey participated along with Justice Department Loretta Lynch, Sally Yates, John P Carlin, Bruce Ohr and Lisa Page. Mr. diGenova has a solid grasp on the players and how they are enmeshed within the entire operation. [Video clip] Republicans Have Four Easy Ways to #ReleaseTheMemo — and the Evidence for It. Social media last night and today have been flooded with inflammatory and quite dramatic claims now being made by congressional Republicans about a four-page memo alleging abuses of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act spying processes during the 2016 election. This memo, which remains secret, was reportedly written under the direction of the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, GOP Rep. Devin Nunes, and has been read by dozens of members of Congress after the committee voted to make the memo available to all members of the House of Representatives to examine in a room specially designated for reviewing classified material. The rhetoric issuing from GOP members who read the memo is notably extreme. North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, called the memo "troubling" and "shocking" and said, "Part of me wishes that I didn't read it because I don't want to believe that those kinds of things could be happening in this country that I call home and love so much." GOP Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania stated: "You think about, 'Is this happening in America or is this the KGB?' That's how alarming it is." This has led to a ferocious outcry on the right to "release the memo" — and presumably thereby prove that the Obama administration conducted unlawful surveillance on the Trump campaign and transition. A Bombshell House Intelligence report exposing extensive FISA abuse could lead to the removal of senior government officials. A review of a classified document outlining what is described as extensive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse was made available to all House members Thursday [1/18/2018] and the revelations could lead to the removal of senior officials in the FBI and Department of Justice, several sources with knowledge of the document stated. These sources say the report is "explosive," stating they would not be surprised if it leads to the end of Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation into President Trump and his associates. The House Intelligence Committee passed the motion along party lines Thursday to make the classified report alleging extensive 'FISA Abuse' related to the controversial dossier available to all House members. The Obama Administration's "Brazen Plot To Exonerate Hillary Clinton" Starting to Leak Out, According to Former Fed Prosecutor. A former federal prosecutor says the truth is starting to seep out about the Obama Administration's "brazen plot to exonerate Hillary Clinton" and "frame an incoming president with a false Russian conspiracy," according to an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation. Joe diGenova, a former federal prosecutor, connects the dots on former Obama administration Justice Department and FBI officials who may have "violated the law, perhaps committed crimes" to politicize law enforcement and surveillance against political opponents. FBI Agents Spoke Of 'Pressure' To Wrap Up Clinton Probe As Trump Surged To GOP Nomination. One of the FBI agents who oversaw the Clinton email investigation spoke of "pressure" to wrap up the probe after it became clear that Donald Trump would win the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. And in a text exchange on July 1, 2016, FBI lawyer Lisa Page suggested to her lover, counterintelligence official Peter Strzok, that then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch had foreknowledge that the FBI planned to exonerate Clinton in the investigation over her use of a private email server. That despite then-FBI Director James Comey saying on July 5, 2016 that the Justice Department had no idea what statement he planned to make that day. Loretta Lynch Already Knew Comey Would Let Hillary Go Free When Announcing She Would Accept FBI's Conclusion. According to an exchange between Strzok and Bureau lawyer Lisa Page, then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch reportedly knew former FBI Director James Comey would let Hillary Clinton off the hook in her email investigation when she announced the Justice Department would "defer" to the FBI's conclusion. Ex-Secret Service Agent Warns FISA Memo Leaves Obama With Only Two Options. On Thursday [1/18/2018], former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino warned the release of the FISA report will destroy the image of his former boss Barack Obama. "Take it to the bank, the FBI/FISA docs are devastating for the Dems. The whole image of a benevolent Barack Obama they've disingenuously tried to portray is about to be destroyed. The real Obama, the vengeful narcissist, is going to be exposed for all to see," tweeted Dan Bongino[.] This Memo May Expose Obama's Watergate. The big explosive scandal is the one that hardly anyone talks about. It's not Russia collusion. It's not even Uranium One. It's the eavesdropping on Trump staffers by Obama staffers. This eavesdropping was partially legitimized by the Steele dossier. It was accidentally uncovered and since then it's cost multiple people their jobs, not the people responsible, but those who learned about it. Now the reckoning may finally be here. Republicans are lining up to view the classified FISA abuse memo, while Democrats choose to stay in the dark. More than 130 congressional members have viewed the classified four-page memo detailing what senior government officials describe as "disturbing and explosive" surveillance abuse by employees of the FBI and Department of Justice under the Obama administration against President Trump and members of his campaign. But almost all of them were Republicans. Since the document was released Thursday to House members "only Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee have seen it," a congressional source with knowledge of the memo said. The classified memo was described by senior government officials as a detailed account of the House Intelligence Committee's investigation into the FBI and apparent FISA abuse associated with the controversial dossier that alleged President Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential election. As recently reported, some congressional members who reviewed the memo said the revelations may end in the removal or criminal prosecution of senior officials in the FBI and Department of Justice. Ex-Secret Service Agent Warns 'Devastating' FISA Memo Set To 'Expose' Obama. The House Intel panel's passage of New York Republican Rep. Peter King's motion to release the FISA abuse memo to fellow House members has rocked Washington, D.C. Lawmakers from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) have called for the classified memo's immediate release. According to Fox News contributor Sara Carter, the contents of the memo are so "explosive," that it could end special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe once and for all. Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino warned the release of the FISA report will destroy the image of his former boss Barack Obama. House Committee Document Could Mean Trouble for Anti-Trump "Deep-Statists". Sara Carter reports on a classified document that was released to all members of the House today. The document seems to be a compilation of information, prepared by House intelligence committee staff, relating to the anti-Trump dossier, the FBI, the warrant to conduct surveillance on members of the Trump campaign, and the use of that warrant. Carter calls the document a bombshell. Her sources say its revelations might lead to the removal of senior officials in the FBI and Department of Justice, and perhaps even to the criminal prosecution of some. They also say, less plausibly, that the revelations could lead to the end of Robert Mueller's investigation into President Trump and his associates. What information does the classified document contain? We don't know yet. It's classified. Secret (for now) memo may blow the lid off FISA warrant and Mueller investigation. Conservative hearts are aflutter, thanks to a memo that has been made available to members of the House of Representatives (if they go to a secure room and read it). According to several members, there is finally hope of documenting the cabal that appears to have deceived the FISA Court with the Steele dossier to obtain a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign, and then launched special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate the bogus "collusion" charges, morphing into the Lavrentiy Beria strategy of "show me the man, and I'll find you the crime." According to some members who have seen it, heads may roll, and people may end up in prison. The Evidence Inside The "House Intel Committee Four Page FISA Memo". As the year-long story has unfolded, there are two central components at the heart of the political corruption and weaponization of the DOJ and FBI: First, corruption within the DOJ and FBI that included their use of unlawful use of FISA-702 exploits; and [s]econd, how that intelligence information was extracted, passed along to those outside government, repackaged, and reconstituted into the "Steele Dossier". The finished, albeit sketchy, intelligence was later returned to the FBI to request lawful FISA court surveillance authority. It is a circle of "intelligence laundering". The DOJ (National Security Division), and FBI (Counterintelligence Division), worked together on the enterprise. This collaboration is where the insider "small group" participants assemble, intersect and ultimately redistribute themselves into the Mueller investigation with the help of Mueller's adviser, FBI Chief Legal Counsel James Baker. The evidence of this corrupt DOJ and FBI weaponization of intelligence is what lies inside today's Four Page Intelligence Committee Memo. House Intelligence Committee Votes To Reveal "The Big Ugly". The House Intelligence Committee voted today to allow all congressional members to view a summary report of classified documents behind the "Clinton Dossier". As Byron York writes in the Washington Examiner: "At the committee's meeting Thursday morning [1/18/2018], Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., offered a motion to allow all House members to review a brief report prepared by the Republican majority summarizing the panel's investigation into what GOP members call 'FISA abuse.'" This Defense Of FBI's Handling Of The Steele Dossier Is One Of The Weakest Yet. [Scroll down] The dossier has been driving news coverage of Russia since it was legitimized via a leak to major media a year ago. The dossier alleges treasonous collusion between Donald Trump and Russia. It includes salacious details. It was written by someone who journalists and intelligence officials said was a credible ex-spy. And it was allegedly used by the FBI, even though it was a Clinton campaign document. But more than a year after it became public, none of its significant claims have been verified. In recent weeks, some journalists and other critics of President Trump have been downplaying its importance as a centerpiece of the FBI's investigation. Others are trying to rehabilitate it and the shady opposition researchers who have run its messaging campaign. The most important recent talking point, for some reason, is that it wasn't used to launch an investigation into Trump and his associates. The FBI and Collusion: An Inside View. On May 17, 2017, former FBI director Robert Mueller was appointed as special counsel to investigate the supposed Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Now, over a year and a half later, this has become the equivalent of the Energizer battery that keeps going on and on forever. Not only is it apparent that there is no prosecutable collusion case, but what the investigation has proven is that the world's finest law enforcement agency, the FBI, has become blemished, stained, and tainted. The Mueller probe and the FBI leadership have become contaminated by an anti-Trump bias, improper leaks, and text messages between senior FBI officials showing their own form of collusion. American Thinker interviewed Jim Kallstrom, the former assistant director in charge of the FBI office in New York and a twenty-eight-year veteran of that agency, on his views. Ohr what? When NSA Mike Rogers discovered the unauthorized search FISA-702 contractor access queries, he shut it down. The use of the FBI NSA database had been ongoing for a long period of time. However, it was the increases in FISA-702(17) "About Queries" responses, from November 2015 through March 2016 that triggered the internal alarm. When Admiral Rogers effectively shut down FBI contractor access to the FISA search system, the DOJ/FBI "small group" needed a way back in. Congress Takes 3-Prong Approach To Surround Corrupt Intelligence and Justice Officials. There is an interesting dynamic unfolding with White Hats and Black Hats amid the story of how political forces within the DOJ and FBI conspired with Clinton allies in the 2016 presidential election, ie. "The Trump Operation". [...] There are two central components: First, corruption within the DOJ and FBI that included their use of unlawful use of FISA-702 exploits; and second, how that intelligence information was extracted, passed along to those outside government, repackaged, and reconstituted into the "Steele Dossier". The finished, albeit sketchy, intelligence was later returned to the FBI to request lawful FISA court surveillance authority. It is a circle of "intelligence laundering". Friday Night Document Surprise from Office of Inspector General. Well, well, well... here's a surprise. Office of Inspector General has apparently begun giving Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte the 1.2 million pages of evidence from the year-long inspector general investigation into FBI and DOJ politicization. Why Is the FBI So Afraid of Encryption? FBI Director Christopher Wray declared the bureau's inability to access encrypted electronic devices a "major public safety issue." The Obama FBI: They're With Her. It was the summer of an election year. The official odds all favored Hillary. But a failed FISA request had already been made. And the real insurance was still coming. Its policies would include a second successful FISA request, the Steele dossier, the mass unmasking of Trump officials and the Mueller witch hunt. The insurance still hasn't paid off, but the men and women behind the coup are betting that it will. GOP House investigators want James Comey to testify on Clinton email investigation. House Republicans are preparing to ask former FBI Director James Comey to testify as part of the Republican-led probe into the FBI and Justice Department handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Comey's testimony, if he appeared, would raise the stakes of the joint Judiciary and Oversight Committee investigation into the decision not to charge the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee over classified emails on her private server — and the rare step for Comey to publicly announce Clinton would not be charged — as the probe has become a proxy battle on Capitol Hill between Democrats and Republicans over special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Several Republicans told CNN that Comey is a key witness for the investigation, although it's not clear how soon he would be asked to testify. FBI Text Messages Suggest Senior Agents Were Sources Of Trump Dossier Leaks. The more we learn, the more the deluge of classified leaks about the totally irrelevant Trump dossier become explicable. The Hill reports today on an overview of the 300+ text messages between former number two guy in the FBI's counterintelligence operation, Peter Strzok, and his paramour, FBI attorney, and friend of Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page. Strzok and Page, you'll recall, were assigned to Mueller's investigation. The were removed when it was revealed they were sending anti-Trump/pro-Hillary text messages to each other on their government smartphones. Strzok is the guy who made an ominous reference to having an "insurance policy" to keep Trump from being elected. Strzok is the guy who interviewed Mike Flynn. These texts aren't conclusive but they strongly suggest that both Strzok and Page were leaking information to the media. The FBI Takes a Mulligan. Last week the FBI announced that it was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private unsecured email system while she was secretary of state and separately reviving the investigation into possibly illegal actions by her and her staff related to donations to the Clinton Foundation in those same years. It's no wonder that the FBI wants to "take a Mulligan" on both. The FBI's — meaning then-FBI director James Comey's — bizarre exoneration of Clinton in the former and the Bureau's burial of the latter investigation have done more damage to the FBI's reputation than any other incidents in its history. A Justice Department Inspector General investigation into the Clinton email mess will soon highlight the ugly facts. That is probably the reason for the revivals. The FBI's Dubious Probe of Hillary's Emails. The FBI did everything but drive Hillary's getaway car. Former secretary of state Clinton is a free woman largely thanks to the tender loving care that the FBI provided her and her conspirators during its probe of her illegal, unsecure email server and related abuse of government secrets. GOP lawmakers concluded this after grilling FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe on December 21, behind closed doors, according to John Solomon's molar-grinding exposé in Tuesday's [1/2/2018] The Hill. "For the first time, investigators say they have secured written evidence that the FBI believed there was evidence that some laws were broken," Solomon reported. This proof includes what Solomon calls revelations of "irregularities and contradictions" in the FBI's inquiry. Congressional investigators find irregularities in FBI's handling of Clinton email case. That evidence includes passages in FBI documents stating the "sheer volume" of classified information that flowed through Clinton's insecure emails was proof of criminality as well as an admission of false statements by one key witness in the case, the investigators said. The name of the witness is redacted from the FBI documents but lawmakers said he was an employee of a computer firm that helped maintain her personal server after she left office as America's top diplomat and who belatedly admitted he had permanently erased an archive of her messages in 2015 after they had been subpoenaed by Congress. The investigators also confirmed that the FBI began drafting a statement exonerating Clinton of any crimes while evidence responsive to subpoenas was still outstanding and before agents had interviewed more than a dozen key witnesses. Walls Close In Around DOJ and FBI "Small Group" Participants. Several stories broke yesterday [1/4/2018]: [#1] Senator Ron Johnson gains copies of the manipulated/edited FBI small group "talking points" that exonerated Hillary Clinton despite overwhelming evidence. Johnson is a Senate Judiciary Committee member and remains focused on those specifics. [#2] Senator Chuck Grassley has identified that former FBI Director James Comey leaked classified FBI information to the media to gain political leverage. Additional questions are now raised by the Senate Judiciary Chairman. [#3] The FBI has begun a new review of the Clinton Foundation pay-to-play network during Hillary Clinton's tenure at the State Dept. Investigators are questioning the people within the Clinton foundation about actions taken as a result of donations to the foundation. [#4] A federal judge has ruled that Fusion GPS must turn over it's [sic] bank records to the House Intelligence Committee. Including records of financial payments to journalists and media outlets to push the Christopher Steele "Dossier" story. What the Trump dossier criminal referral means. There's been a lot of confusion about the decision by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley and crime subcommittee chairman Lindsey Graham to refer Christopher Steele, author of the Trump dossier, to the Justice Department for a possible criminal investigation. The two senators sent a brief letter Thursday to deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and FBI director Christopher Wray. The letter, which was unclassified and released to the public Friday [1/5/2018], was a cover letter for what Grassley and Graham called a "classified memorandum related to certain communications between Christopher Steele and multiple U.S. news outlets regarding the so-called 'Trump dossier' that Mr. Steele compiled on behalf of Fusion GPS for the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee and also provided to the FBI." Comey Memo Bombshell: Evidence Hillary Committed A Felony, Deleted Mentions Of Evidence. A bombshell report released on Thursday reveals that former FBI Director James Comey's memo on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said there was "evidence to support a conclusion" that she committed a felony before subordinates removed multiple references of incriminating terms and deleted mentions of evidence that supported felony and misdemeanor criminal acts. The website of Senate Homeland and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) released the full draft of Comey's memo on Clinton, including the edits to the draft. Now We Know: FBI Ignored Lawbreaking To Exonerate Hillary Clinton. Each new revelation about how the FBI handled — or, more appropriately, mishandled — the Clinton email scandal makes it that much clearer that politics trumped law enforcement, even when it involved matters of national security. The Hill's John Solomon reported on Wednesday [1/3/2018] that congressional investigators have turned up evidence that the FBI believed laws had been broken when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her top aides exchanged a multitude of classified information via email over Clinton's unsecured, home-brew server. DOJ prepares new probe of Clinton's email server. The Trump administration is launching another probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server when she was secretary of state, a new report said Thursday. Attorney General Jeff Sessions hopes to uncover new details on how Clinton and her aides handled classified material, The Daily Beast reported, citing a source close to the former Alabama senator. The new probe was prompted by President Trump's repeated calls on Twitter and elsewhere for another FBI investigation into "Crooked Hillary," the source said. It's time to investigate Fusion GPS's dirt-diggers, possible collusion with feds to derail Trump's campaign. Late Wednesday [1/3/2018], the Justice Department and FBI stopped their four-month old stonewall of subpoenas from Congress for documents and witnesses related to the Steele dossier, the infamous compilation of unverified and salacious material alleging President Trump had improper dealings with Russia. All of the material will now apparently be turned over. The House Intelligence Committee had demanded that the Justice Department and FBI explain how they came to become involved with former British spy Christopher Steele, who compiled the dossier after being paid by Fusion GPS. The company is a notorious Washington opposition research firm that in turn was paid to dig up dirt on Donald Trump by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee. FBI launches new Clinton Foundation investigation. The Justice Department has launched a new inquiry into whether the Clinton Foundation engaged in any pay-to-play politics or other illegal activities while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of State, law enforcement officials and a witness tells The Hill. FBI agents from Little Rock, Ark., where the foundation was started, have taken the lead in the investigation and have interviewed at least one witness in the last month, and law enforcement officials said additional activities are expected in the coming weeks. The officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the probe is examining whether the Clintons promised or performed any policy favors in return for largesse to their charitable efforts or whether donors made commitments of donations in hopes of securing government outcomes. Will the media ask questions about an FBI cover-up or become complicit in it? For over a year the media have breathlessly followed every turn in the probes of Russia's attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election, along with any possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. But now a new story is about to bust open, involving Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Nunes sent a letter Thursday [12/28/2017] to the Justice Department demanding compliance by Wednesday with the subpoenas his committee issued for information on how the department and its FBI subsidiary have handled the Russia probe. Now We Know: FBI Ignored Lawbreaking To Exonerate Hillary Clinton. Each new revelation about how the FBI handled — or, more appropriately, mishandled — the Clinton email scandal makes it that much clearer that politics trumped law enforcement, even when it involved matters of national security. New Evidence Found That FBI Investigators Believed "Laws Were Broken" by Hillary Clinton. In what could be a major black eye for the deep state and yet another nail in the Clinton legacy coffin, The Hill's John Solomon reports that Republicans on key congressional committees say they have uncovered new irregularities and contradictions inside the FBI's probe of Hillary Clinton's email server. Former Bush AG On Comey's 2007 Brush With Scandal: 'Jim's Loyalty Was More To Chuck Schumer'. [Scroll down] The narrative from the Acela corridor media establishment is that Trump is a known liar and Comey is an honest public servant above reproach, so clearly Comey's word must be believed, the total absence of any other corroborating evidence notwithstanding. [...] In fact, the current episode is not the first time Comey and his associates plotted to oust a sitting Republican official through highly orchestrated political theater and carefully crafted narratives in which Comey is the courageous hero bravely fighting to preserve the rule of law. To understand how Comey came to be FBI director in the first place, and how he operates in the political arena, it is important to review the last scandal in which Comey had a front-row seat: the 2007 U.S. attorney firings and the fight over the 2004 reauthorization of Stellar Wind, a mass National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program designed to mitigate terrorist threats in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. FBI Knew The 'Bleach Bit' Computer Guy Lied In Clinton Email Testimony, Gave Him Immunity. The Hill published a story today based on leaks from a recent House Judiciary Committee meeting where FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe discussed elements of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Republicans on the committee say McCabe outlined some irregularities that suggest the outcome of the investigation was rigged in Clinton's favor. Among the new findings is that an unnamed tech specialist who used Bleach Bit to wipe Clinton's server after a congressional subpoena was issued admitted lying to the FBI. Fusion GPS Tries, and Fails, To Distance Themselves From FBI FISA Origin. It's every man and woman for themselves as the collective groups of architects behind the entire FBI Counterintelligence Operation, that brought us the 18-month-long 'vast Russian conspiracy' narrative, now attempt to back-track from all previous assertions. Two days ago we shared very strong confidence the joint FBI (counterintelligence) and DOJ (National Security Division) scheme was going to come out. The reason is simple, they left too big a trail of factual and provable evidence of their activity. The Stunning Truth Proving the FBI and DOJ Corruption Will Come Out. The Bigger media voices will eventually catch up to the story. Right now the scale of the story is so large, and the consequences so damaging to the Republic, they are scared to call it out... but that won't last too much longer. Unless they are genuinely all paid political operatives of the UniParty, by the end of this month the sunlight will be so intense their worries about losing invites to the best cocktail parties will be overcome by the enormity of the truth. DOJ Blows Past Deadline to Turn Over Documents to Congress on Dossier. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes is blasting the Department of Justice and FBI after officials ignored congressional subpoenas and blew threw a deadline to turn over documents related to the infamous Fusion GPS dossier. In a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Nunes points out that not only did DOJ mislead his Committee about the existense of documents, they also unlawfully failed to comply with congressional requests. The DOJ and FBI rot from the head down. So who's the head? After months of investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his army of highly partisan investigators, spending millions of taxpayer dollars, all Mueller has to show for his efforts is a handful of process crimes that have nothing to do with the original allegations that the Trump campaign worked with Putin to influence the 2016 election. With 90 percent of media coverage negative toward President Trump, you can be certain that if Trump conspired with Russia to hack the election, these same media would have long ago found evidence of collusion. But they haven't, have they? Instead, they hyperventilate over nonsense, such as a truck blocking their view of Trump's golf course, now a three-day story for CNN. The Scale of FBI and DOJ Corruption is Beyond Comprehension. If you spend time looking at the scale and scope, I mean honestly looking at how deeply enmeshed those ideological entities are within the system, you would also have to admit the problem is not just a matter of eliminating a few dozen DOJ lawyers and FBI agents. The issue is much bigger. A Timeline Of Treason: How the DNC and FBI Leadership Tried to Fix a Presidential Election. As an aside, this appears to be the biggest political scandal in the history of the country. Never before has an outgoing administration attempted to fix a presidential election. It's like something out of a third world country. But then, Obama always admired dictators like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. Trump is right about the FBI. The ferocity of President Donald Trump's recent attacks on the integrity of the FBI has sent shock waves through an agency accustomed to public adulation in recent years. Sadly, much of the presidential criticism of the bureau may be entirely legitimate. The FBI has traditionally enjoyed a highly favorable reputation among a majority of the nation's citizens. Despite controversial programs that sometimes employed illegal forms of surveillance and enforcement methods — such as those used on black citizens lawfully protesting racial segregation, individuals in the "red scare" of the 1950s and long-haired students and others protesting the war in Vietnam during the 1960s and '70s — this reputation endured. And American presidents continued to steadfastly defend the bureau — that is, until now. Senator Lindsey Graham Just Confirmed The Steele Dossier Was Used For 2016 FISA Warrant. Senator Lindsey Graham just confirmed the sketchy Steele Dossier was used to get the wiretap and surveillance warrant from the FISA court. Brian Kilmead understood what he was hearing was serious, but didn't quite catch the specific gravity of it. [Video clip] This is critical and important because the specific use of the Steele Dossier underpins the BIG UGLY and exposes the entire top-tier apparatus of the FBI Counterintelligence Division (Peter Strzok, Bill Priestap, James Baker, Andrew McCabe) and the DOJ National Security Division (John Carlin, Stuart Evans, Mary McCord and Sally Yates), as well as DOJ Bruce Ohr and FBI lawyer Lisa Page directly to "conspiracy" charges. The Dossiad. The Steele/Trump dossier gave critical support to claims of Russian collusion with the Trump presidential campaign. It seems to have served as the predicate for the FBI counterintelligence investigation of Trump campaign associates. Then FBI Director James Comey briefed President Trump on the contents of the dossier before his inauguration in January. BuzzFeed posted the dossier online. When President Trump fired Comey, Comey engineered the appointment of his friend Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to continue the counte |
