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Ohr it's another nothingburger
Ohr it's another nothingburger
Following the Clintons’ Final Con
For years I have been saying that the Clintons lie when they do not have to, and they tell a gigantic whopper when a little white lie would be perfectly adequate. This time-honored observation explains many of their past run-ins with the law.
Now in the lurid aftermath of Hillary Clinton’s surprising defeat to Donald Trump we see a variation of my observation playing itself out. Eventually, it will probably land some of Hillary’s associates in jail; possibly it will snag even her. In 2016, despite being well ahead in the polls, the Clintons committed various misdemeanors when they did not have to, and they and their associates committed obvious felonies when simple misdemeanors would have been perfectly adequate.
Let us begin by following the money. At least $1.02 million came from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton Campaign in 2015 to the legal firm of Perkins Coie, an obvious pass-through. Then it went from Perkins Coie to Fusion GPS, another obvious pass-through. Finally it reached its destination, Christopher Steele, an ex-British intelligence sleuth who was contemptuous of Trump, had close ties with the FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies, and boasted of his worldwide connections with, among others, Russians. He reportedly took $168,000 as payment for his services. That the DNC and Hillary’s campaign were firmly under Clinton control has been widely reported, most recently by Donna Brazile in her angry book about the campaign, Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House.
Now let us follow some of the characters in this emerging scheme. To begin with, there is Steele feverishly flogging his famous “dossier.” It contains “salacious” material about Trump supposedly paying Moscow pros utes to evacuate on a bed that President Barack Obama once slept in. The report is dubious because Trump is a well-known “germophobe” and because he was born fully equipped to befoul a bed on his own. But there is more. The dossier also contains information about Trump conducting business in Russia, presumably while he was fully dressed.
Steele took this information to the FBI, which then took it to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) to get permission to spy on Carter Page, a low level advisor to Trump on foreign policy matters. Actually, by the time the FISA warrant was issued on Page he no longer worked for the Trump campaign, not that that matters. Steele also went around peddling his dossier to members of the media. It would seem to me that in doing so Steele broke the law, he having promised the FBI not to talk to the media. What is more, the FBI broke the law by not informing the FISA court of the provenance of the material that it gave the FISA court and the material’s funding sources. Ultimately, Washington lawyers are going to be in high demand.
By the way, it appears that at least some of Steele’s information could have come from Russians, for instance the salacious stuff. So who has been colluding with the Russians? Agents of Trump or agents of Hillary Clinton? And it is at this point that I shall introduce another set of characters that could have come from no other source than Hillary, Sidney Blumenthal and a man that The American Spectator profiled last week, Cody Shearer. He has not been heard of for some twenty years.
Shearer, the New York Times told us Saturday, “has been criss-crossing Eastern Europe for more than six months to secure the purported kompromat from a different Russian….” Supposedly Shearer was dealing with different Russians than Steele’s contacts. Incidentally, Shearer is only identified by the Times as “an American political operative with ties to the Democratic party.” The Spectator identified him more completely as a long-time “hatchet man” for the Clintons. We supplied evidence. Shearer gave the fruits of his labors to Blumenthal who handed them over to an employee of the State Department, Jonathan M. Winer, whom he had known for thirty years. These fellows go way back. Winer insists that he did not share them with anyone at State, but he did share them with Steele who noted their similarities with Steele’s dossier. Steele then gave Shearer’s material to the FBI who presumably showed it to the FISA court.
While the Clinton campaign took considerable care to cover their tracks with their money trail and with comingling obvious Clintonistas like Blumenthal and Shearer with less-well-known characters such as Steele, their efforts were not sufficient, as we can now see. Actually they rarely are. If the Clintons were expert crooks they would not have been caught so many times over the years. When caught they always take refuge with their political friends and with the press. Perhaps this time they did not think they would have to, for they were so far ahead in the polls. It is bracing to think that if the Clinton campaign had won the presidency we would know nothing of their perfidy.
https://spectator.org/following-the-clintons-final-con/
ohr, the american born chinese mole.
FISA Court Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer Responds to Chairman Nunes and Chairman Goodlatte Request for FISC Do ents…
https://theconservativetreehouse.com...mpression=true
http://www.businessinsider.com/susan...meeting-2018-2
Then there's this from the same article:
Ruemmler noted in her letter, citing Business Insider's previous reporting, that Grassley obtained Rice's memo in June 2017 — nearly eight months before they sent her a letter raising questions about the email. Given their concerns, it is unclear why Grassley and Graham waited eight months before addressing the matter with Rice. Their representatives did not respond to multiple requests for comment earlier this month.
3 questions inspector general must answer regarding investigation of FBI leadership
The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is a nonpartisan oversight branch charged with detecting and deterring misconduct within the Department of Justice (DOJ). The FBI and its director answer to the DOJ and its head, the attorney general.
It is no secret that the OIG is investigating allegations of malfeasance within the upper echelons of FBI leadership during the James Comey era, from September 2013 until his firing last May. Its report could ruin careers and reputations at the FBI, damage the bureau’s morale and image, or even lead to the prosecution of some FBI officials.
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The expected report is a hotly debated topic between two intransigent camps, pitting adherents of the Comey cult-of-personality against those who view his tenure as fraught with somewhat well-intentioned but inherently politicized missteps.
Those detractors, with whom I claim association, view Comey’s oversight as a period when the bureau’s organizational values tacked out of alignment. We lament the missed opportunity for Comey, the custodian of those values. to exhibit courage and confront a bully of a president who, sensing weakness, exploits it.
Leaking FBI do ents to the press — through a surrogate, no less — doesn’t show leadership or courage; it’s an abdication of responsibility. And it leads us to a point where the OIG report should provide clarity on three key questions:
1. Were investigative do ents altered by senior FBI leadership?
The FD-302 is an FBI testimonial do ent (I drafted thousands of them during a quarter-century career with the bureau) designed to capture facts that report or summarize interviews with subjects of, or witnesses to, events in an investigation.
Investigative journalist Sara Carter has reported that FBI sources maintain the FBI’s deputy director under Comey, Andrew G. McCabe, may have asked FBI agents to alter or change their findings in their 302s; Carter alleges that OIG Inspector General Michael Horowitz is looking into this.
During my tenure in the FBI, no supervisor or executive manager ever asked me to materially change anything in my 302s; as an FBI boss for almost 15 years, I never requested any investigators to alter the substance of their findings in a 302.
If Horowitz can prove that senior FBI leadership ordered investigators to interfere with written evidence on an FD-302, that is the very definition of obstruction of justice. FD-302s aren’t “opinion pieces.” This could be a central part of the OIG’s report and, if the allegations are proven, it would not bode well for McCabe and others.
2. Did Deputy Director McCabe purposely “slow-walk” the discovery of pertinent emails discovered on former congressman Anthony Weiner’s laptop and “stand down” relevant FBI investigations to protect Hillary Clinton?
We now know that the FBI knew about 3,000 additional, potentially classified emails discovered on a laptop that Clinton aide Huma Abedin shared with her spouse, the disgraced Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), about a month before Comey’s letter announcing the same to Congress.
As the Wall Street Journal first reported, weeks transpired after that discovery by agents of the FBI’s New York office and by New York Police Department detectives investigating potential child-endangerment charges against Weiner.
While Comey ultimately drafted the letter to Congress that reopened the Clinton investigation — and, some believe, diminished Clinton’s chances in the 2016 presidential election — it is alleged that McCabe resisted notifying Congress of the discovered emails.
Sources confirm it was only after NYPD threats of “going public” with the email discovery that FBI headquarters reluctantly decided to notify Congress — something Comey previously assured Congress he would do as soon as any new evidence was discovered.
Agents with knowledge of the email investigation, and a tangential case involving alleged “pay to play” scheming between the Clinton State Department and the Clinton Global Initiative, advise me that McCabe wanted to disassemble the Little Rock, Ark., FBI office’s investigation into corruption within the Clinton Foundation. But agents loudly and defiantly balked, and the case remained open.
McCabe, of course, has come under fire for his wife’s acceptance of funds for her unsuccessful 2015 Virginia senate campaign from a political action committee tied to then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-Va.), a longtime Clinton ally and associate.
The most difficult part of any investigation can be proving motive, intent. If the OIG draws a connection between McCabe’s political relationships and the decisions he made, therein would lie the elusive “smoking gun” that FBI senior leadership purposely distorted their fealty to the Cons ution and the bureau’s mission.
Embarrassing text messages between FBI deputy assistant director Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page already indicate an “insurance policy”against a Trump presidency had been discussed in “Andy’s office,” apparently referring to McCabe. This undoubtedly will be at the heart of the OIG’s focus.
Was there direct, improper coordination — collusion — between the Obama White House, the attorney general and the FBI director?
When James Comey appeared before television cameras on July 5, 2016, to announce that the FBI would not seek charges over Hillary Clinton’s improper usage of a private email server, he made a critical aside. He steadfastly maintained that the White House and DOJ knew nothing of his decision and would learn of it as everyone else would, at the conclusion of his remarks.
Comey had been thrust into an untenable position. Then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s inexplicable 30-minute private meeting with former president Bill Clinton aboard a government jet at the Phoenix airport on June 27, 2016, was conducted out of earshot of her staff. Lynch’s insistence that this dubious interaction was a conversation about “golf and grandkids” has been well chronicled.
Yet, Comey steadfastly maintained that his taking this unprecedented maneuver to cir vent DOJ and speak directly to Americans about the Clinton case was based on his foresworn decision to consult neither DOJ nor the White House, to avoid the appearance of political influence.
Recently released text messages between Strzok and Page indicate Lynch knew of Comey’s decision well in advance. President Obama placed his finger on the scales during a Fox News interview on April 10, 2016; the president, who made a habit of weighing in on cases that had not been fully adjudicated, flatly stated he “continued to believe [Secretary Clinton] has not jeopardized America’s national security.” Case closed.
Since we now also know Strzok and Page attempted to cir vent discovery of their efforts to influence the Clinton email server investigation by switching to non-governmental electronic devices, as highlighted by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Comey’s insistence beggars belief.
What else could be gleaned from recovered text messages on devices Strzok and Page switched to, to avoid scrutiny? And if Comey lied about what Lynch and Obama knew before his press conference, what else was he dishonest about?
We all must believe in the rule of law and in due process. In our system of justice, there is a presumption of innocence, and those mentioned above deserve that, too.
Yet, to pretend that the facts outlined above don’t hint of a troubling pattern, is just so much whistling past the graveyard. The OIG’s report must provide the answers.
http://thehill.com/opinion/white-hou...igation-of-fbi
Oh, look -- stuff about Clinton.
TSA, why did Grassley sit on the Rice email for months?
House Republicans are expanding their investigation of the Trump dossier, seeking answers from Obama administration officials including a former staffer for Vice President Joe Biden whose husband works for the firm behind the controversial do ent, Fox News has learned.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed to Fox News that Shailagh Murray, who was Biden's former deputy chief of staff and communications director before serving as a senior adviser to President Obama, will be sent a questionnaire Friday.”
The questionnaire, from Republican Chairman Devin Nunes of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, will ask when Murray became aware that the dossier - commissioned by opposition research firm Fusion GPS - was funded by the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign.
According to Murray's online profile with the University of Chicago Ins ute of Politics, she joined the Obama administration in 2011 after working as a foreign correspondent, and national political reporter for The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.
Murray is married to Neil King Jr., who, according to the Columbia Journalism Review, left The Wall Street Journal to work for Fusion GPS.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018...officials.html
Do they have spooky music like the 9/11 videos, TSAdan?
All I see is someone told Fox News that Republicans intend to investigate more Clinton/Obama stuff and you getting your hopes up as usual.House Republicans are expanding their investigation of the Trump dossier, seeking answers from Obama administration officials including a former staffer for Vice President Joe Biden whose husband works for the firm behind the controversial do ent, Fox News has learned.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed to Fox News that Shailagh Murray, who was Biden's former deputy chief of staff and communications director before serving as a senior adviser to President Obama, will be sent a questionnaire Friday.”
The questionnaire, from Republican Chairman Devin Nunes of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, will ask when Murray became aware that the dossier - commissioned by opposition research firm Fusion GPS - was funded by the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign.
According to Murray's online profile with the University of Chicago Ins ute of Politics, she joined the Obama administration in 2011 after working as a foreign correspondent, and national political reporter for The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.
Murray is married to Neil King Jr., who, according to the Columbia Journalism Review, left The Wall Street Journal to work for Fusion GPS.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018...officials.html
Grassley, Graham, Cornyn, Tillis Seek Special Counsel to Work with Inspector General on Handling of Russia Investigation
The Honorable Jeff Sessions
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530
The Honorable Rod J. Rosenstein
Deputy Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530
Dear Attorney General Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein:
As you know, the Department of Justice Inspector General currently is reviewing the Department’s and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s handling of the Clinton email investigation.[1] Recently, the Attorney General requested that he also review questions about the Department’s and the FBI’s actions in seeking a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against former Trump Campaign advisor Carter Page.[2] On February 28, based on reviews of related do ents and facts gathered thus far in the Committee’s oversight work, Chairman Grassley and Chairman Graham also requested that the Inspector General broadly review more than 30 classified and unclassified questions related to the FBI and the Department’s handling of the so-called Trump/Russia investigation and related matters prior to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.[3] For reference, we have attached the unclassified portion of that referral.
The January 4, 2018 referral of Christopher Steele requested that the Justice Department reconcile the statements he made in British libel litigation against him with contrary statements he reportedly made to the FBI, as described in the FISA application. The referral took no position as to which were true, but asked the Justice Department whether Mr. Steele misrepresented the facts to the FBI and whether the FBI inaccurately reported the facts to the court. Based on the release of the memorandum drafted by the minority staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the FBI has now provided a further un-redacted version of that referral memorandum, also attached here.[4] The new version provides the public for the first time the actual quote from the FISA application that we flagged for the Justice Department as inconsistent with claims made in the British libel litigation filings.
The attached request to the Inspector General asked that he investigate issues surrounding the application and renewals of the FISA warrant. It also requested that he review potential improprieties in the FBI’s relationship with Christopher Steele, the potential conflicts of interest posed by the involvement of high-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr in serving as the cut-out between the FBI and Mr. Steele after the FBI terminated its formal relationship with him, apparent unauthorized disclosures of classified information to the press, the FBI and DOJ’s handling of the investigation of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, and other matters.
We have the utmost confidence in the Inspector General’s integrity, fairness, and impartiality, and trust that he will complete these reviews in a thorough, unbiased, and timely fashion. However, by statute, the Inspector General does not have the tools that a prosecutor would to gather all the facts, such as the ability to obtain testimony from essential witnesses who are not current DOJ employees. Thus, we believe that a special counsel is needed to work with the Inspector General to independently gather the facts and make prosecutorial decisions, if any are merited. The Justice Department cannot credibly investigate itself without these enhanced measures of independence to ensure that the public can have confidence in the outcome.
To ensure that the appointment of a special counsel rests on a clear, well-defined predicate and scope, and to give the American people the fullest possible confidence in his or her independence and authority, we believe that the appointment should specifically cite, rely on, and follow the Department’s regulations governing such an appointment, including specifically 28 C.F.R. §§ 600.1-600.4.[5]
If you are unwilling to take this step, please send us a detailed reply explaining why not. We look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Charles E. Grassley Lindsey O. Graham
Chairman Chairman
Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism
John Cornyn Thom Tillis
U.S. Senator U.S. Senator
cc: The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
Ranking Member
Committee on the Judiciary
The Honorable Sheldon Whitehouse
Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism
https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news...pector-general
shookened
Oh look.
Another letter.
The trap is set?
Letters put things on record. Maybe you’ll enjoy an interview more.
http://insider.foxnews.com/amp/artic...mpression=true
They do nothing.
Neither do Fox interviews.
oh look another letter that did nothing
Goodlatte Subpoenas DOJ for Do ents Related to FISA Abuse, Clinton Investigation, and McCabe Firing
https://goodlatte.house.gov/news/doc...o entID=1177
Oh o grand jury, pesky letters.
oh look another letter that did nothing
Goodlatte Subpoenas DOJ for Do ents Related to FISA Abuse, Clinton Investigation, and McCabe Firing
https://goodlatte.house.gov/news/doc...o entID=1177
Oh o grand jury, pesky letters.
FBI boss Wray 'doubling' agents responding to subpoena on Clinton, McCabe, FISA abuses
FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday announced plans to “double the number” of agents handling records for the House Judiciary Committee after it asked for do ents on the Clinton email probe, potential FISA abuses and the firing of Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
According to a statement released by Wray, he believes the do ents requested by committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., are “likely in the thousands” but that he agrees the “current pace of production is too slow.”
In attempt to comply with the committee’s request, Wray said he was “doubling” his team.
“We have dedicated 27 FBI staff to review the records that are potentially responsive to Chairman Goodlatte’s requests,” he wrote, adding he was “doubling the number of assigned FBI staff, for a total of 54, to cover two shifts per day from 8am to midnight to expedite completion of this project.”
But, a DOJ insider told Fox News that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has voiced his concern over the “unacceptable” pace with which the FBI is working and is “done” seeing his department criticized over it.
“He’s told Wray that the pace is unacceptable and that if the FBI needs to double the number of people working on this, then that’s what they need to do, but he is done seeing the Department criticized for the FBI’s slow walking of requests from Congress like the last administration when this requests should be a top priority,” the insider said.
Last week Goodlatte sent a letter, attached to a subpoena, to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein saying only a “fraction” of do ents relation to the Clinton email investigation had been given to the committee and that “no do ents” related to its request on potential FISA abuses had been provided.
“Given the Department’s ongoing delays in producing these do ents, I am left with no choice but to issue the enclosed subpoena to compel production of these do ents,” Goodlatte wrote.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018...sa-abuses.html
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 28, 2018
DOJ OIG Announces Initiation of Review (FISC)
https://oig.justice.gov/press/2018/2018-03-28b.pdf
The Unraveling
What is your prediction here, TSA?
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