The Cabal; the Weaponization of Government - deel II

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When Scandals Collide

As Rich noted last night, we have learned finally, courtesy of the Washington Post, that Fusion GPS, the research firm that produced the notorious “Trump Dossier,” was funded by the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Of course, the Clinton campaign and the DNC always want layers of deniability and obfuscation – and let’s note that it has served them well – so they hire lawyers to do the icky stuff rather than doing it directly. Then, when the you-know-what hits the fan, outfits like Fusion GPS try to claim that they can’t share critical information with investigators because of (among other things) attorney-client confidentiality concerns.

Here, the Clinton campaign and the DNC retained the law firm of Perkins Coie; in turn, one of its partners, Marc E. Elias, retained Fusion GPS. We don’t know how much Fusion GPS was paid, but the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid $9.1 million to Perkins Coie during the 2016 campaign (i.e., between mid-2015 and late 2016).

A friend draws my attention to an intriguing coincidence.

In its capacity as attorney for the DNC, Perkins Coie – through another of its partners, Michael Sussman – is also the law firm that retained CrowdStrike, the cyber security outfit, upon learning in April 2016 that the DNC’s servers had been hacked.In its capacity as attorney for the DNC, Perkins Coie – through another of its partners, Michael Sussman – is also the law firm that retained CrowdStrike, the cyber security outfit, upon learning in April 2016 that the DNC’s servers had been hacked.



The most significant pressing question about the so-called Trump Dossier is whether it was used by the FBI and the Obama Justice Department to get a warrant from the FISA court to conduct national-security surveillance on people connected to the Trump campaign. As I have previously pointed out, this would not be as scandalous as it sounds if (a) the Justice Department had a good faith basis to believe the people the Bureau wanted to surveil were acting as agents of Russia, and (b) the FBI first corroborated whatever information it took from the dossier before presenting it to the FISA court.

But it certainly is interesting that we are once again, in a case involving alleged Russian espionage, reviewing a situation in which the FBI relied on a contractor retained by the DNC’s and the Clinton campaign’s lawyers at Perkins Coie.

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11 Quick Things To Know About The Inspector General’s Report

The Justice Department inspector general report about the FBI reveals a shocking anti-Trump, pro-Hillary bias endemic to the agency's related investigations.

On Thursday, the Justice Department’s inspector general released a long-anticipated report on the FBI’s handling of the criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server that handled classified information. Here are some quick takeaways from the report.

1. Learn How To Interpret An IG Report

The best way to understand an inspector general (IG) report is less as a fiercely independent investigation that seeks justice and more like what you’d expect from a company’s human resources department. Employees frequently think that a company’s human resources department exists to serve employees. There’s some truth in that, but it’s more true that the human resources department exists to serve the corporation.

At the end of the day, the HR department wants what’s best for the company. The FBI’s IG Michael Horowitz has a good reputation for good reason. But his report is in support of the FBI and its policies and procedures. As such, the findings will be focused on helping the FBI improve its adherence to those policies and procedures. 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.

2. FBI Agent Who Led Both The Clinton and Trump Probes Promised He’d Prevent Trump’s Election

Such as this one! On page 420, the IG says that the conduct of five FBI employees who were caught talking about their extreme political bias in the context of their duties “has brought discredit to themselves, sowed doubt about the FBI’s handling of the Midyear investigation, and impacted the reputation of the FBI.” The Midyear investigation was the code for the Clinton probe. Or note this blistering passage:

[W]hen one senior FBI official, [Peter] Strzok, who was helping to lead the Russia investigation at the time, conveys in a text message to another senior FBI official, [Lisa] Page, that ‘we’ll stop’ candidate Trump from being elected—after other extensive text messages between the two disparaging candidate Trump—it is not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even more seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects. This is antithetical to the core values of the FBI and the Department of Justice.

The report goes on to say that the text messages and Strzok’s decision to prioritize the counterintelligence probe of the Trump campaign over the Clinton email criminal investigation “led us to conclude that we did not have confidence that Strzok’s decision was free from bias.”

This text is not just interesting because the FBI’s deputy head of the counterintelligence division who was investigating a major-party candidate told the woman he was cheating on his wife with that “we” would stop the candidate from becoming president. It’s also interesting because this text was hidden from congressional committees performing oversight of the FBI.

3. Comey Mishandled The Clinton Probe In Multiple Ways

It’s worth re-reading Acting Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s May 9, 2017, recommendation that James Comey be fired as FBI director. He cited Comey’s usurpation of the attorney general’s authority in his press conference announcing that Clinton’s case would be closed without prosecution, the release of derogatory information about Clinton despite the decision to not indict her, and Comey’s letter to Congress announcing the FBI had reopened a probe against Clinton.

The IG backs up each and every one of those critiques, and adds much more detail to them.

We concluded that Comey’s unilateral announcement was inconsistent with Department policy and violated long-standing Department practice and protocol by, among other things, criticizing Clinton’s uncharged conduct. We also found that Comey usurped the authority of the Attorney General, and inadequately and incompletely described the legal position of Department prosecutors.

The IG said Comey violated longstanding department practice to avoid “trashing people we’re not charging.” He also inadequately and incompletely explained how Justice prosecutors came to make decisions. “Many of the problems with the statement resulted from Comey’s failure to coordinate with Department officials,” the IG wrote. Had he talked with them, they would have warned him about the problems his statement posed. What’s more, the prosecutors had a very different understanding of why they were declining to charge Clinton than the one Comey claimed they had in his public press conference.

Comey also violated departmental practice in announcing publicly he reopened the probe after additional relevant emails were found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. Both of these decisions were controversial inside and outside the agency.

4. Comey Is Slippery And Weird

The 568-page report includes many examples of Comey being duplicitous and sneaky during his handling of the Clinton email probe. For instance, he asked Attorney General Loretta Lynch how to handle questions regarding the criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information on a secret server. She told him to call it a “matter.” He didn’t object and even complied.

But a year later, the conversation was leaked to The New York Times in a story that painted Comey as a non-partisan truth-teller beset by both Democrats and Republicans. Daniel Richman, the same man who was used to leak Comey’s anti-Trump memos, was a source for the anti-Lynch story.

Comey threatened to appoint a special counsel in the Clinton probe if Justice officials didn’t help him get what he wanted. He bizarrely claimed he was going to announce he’d make no recommendation on the Clinton email probe. He decided he was going to make a solo announcement trashing Clinton while announcing she was not being charged, but let the Justice Department think they would be making a statement together:

Comey admitted that he concealed his intentions from the Department until the morning of his press conference on July 5, and instructed his staff to do the same, to make it impracticable for Department leadership to prevent him from delivering his statement. We found that it was extraordinary and insubordinate for Comey to do so, and we found none of his reasons to be a persuasive basis for deviating from well-established Department policies in a way intentionally designed to avoid supervision by Department leadership over his actions.

He claimed that he didn’t grasp the significance of the hundreds of thousands of Clinton emails being found on Weiner’s computer because he didn’t know that Weiner was married to Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Beyond being too ridiculous to believe, the claim is hardly exonerating. It would mean he was not interested to learn that hundreds of thousands of Clinton emails relevant to a highly charged criminal investigation were found on the laptop of an unrelated man.

Comey asked Justice officials for feedback on his decisions but did so through assistants, suggesting he viewed any feedback as a dangerous encroachment on his decision-making.

“We asked Comey why he asked for the Department’s feedback and then ignored the feedback that he received,” the IG wrote. Later, “Both Lynch and [Deputy Attorney General Sally] Yates explained that they were concerned that any direct discussion with Comey—particularly any discussion in which they told him not to send the letter—would be perceived as an attempt to prevent him from fulfilling his ‘personal ethical obligation’ to notify Congress. Both stated that they were concerned that the fact of any such direct discussions would leak and would be portrayed as Department leadership attempting to ‘prevent information damaging to a candidate from coming out’ (Lynch) or ‘strong-arming’ Comey (Yates).”

5. FBI Has A Massive Leak Problem And Is Doing Nothing About It

As mentioned, both Lynch and Yates were worried that performing legitimate oversight of Comey would be leaked against them to the media. Fear of leaks was also mentioned by many top FBI officials as a major reason that the Southern District of New York was able to force the FBI to reopen the Clinton probe.

“We have profound concerns about the volume and extent of unauthorized media contacts by FBI personnel that we have uncovered during our review,” the report stated. Two attachments were included showing rampant discussions with reporters by people not authorized to be talking to reporters. One FBI executive was caught having had 26 conversations with one reporter and seven conversations with another reporter. They even created charts to help show how rampant the conversations were:



The report showed myriad FBI employees violating FBI policy and department ethics rules.

FBI employees received tickets to sporting events from journalists, went on golfing outings with media representatives, were treated to drinks and meals after work by reporters, and were the guests of journalists at nonpublic social events.

The IG said the leaks were difficult to track down because of how many people had access to classified and non-public information. The IG also said the culture of widespread leaking made it difficult to crack down:

Second, although FBI policy strictly limits the employees who are authorized to speak to the media, we found that this policy appeared to be widely ignored during the period we reviewed. We identified numerous FBI employees, at all levels of the organization and with no official reason to be in contact with the media, who were nevertheless in frequent contact with reporters. The large number of FBI employees who were in contact with journalists during this time period impacted our ability to identify the sources of leaks.

6. FBI Almost Got Away With Ignoring Clinton Emails On Weiner Laptop

In September 2016, when an investigator in the Southern District of New York found hundreds of thousands of Clinton emails and Blackberry messages on a laptop being searched in relation to an investigation of former Rep. Anthony Weiner, he immediately alerted his supervisors. They alerted the FBI, who sat on the information for weeks, only acting after the New York office complained repeatedly.

By October 3, the case agent assigned to the Weiner investigation expressed concern that the FBI appeared to be sitting on what he’d told them. Later he told the IG:

The crickets I was hearing was really making me uncomfortable because something was going to come crashing down…. And my understanding, which is uninformed because…I didn’t work the Hillary Clinton matter. My understanding at the time was I am telling you people I have private Hillary Clinton emails, number one, and BlackBerry messages, number two. I’m telling you that we have potentially 10 times the volume that Director Comey said we had on the record. Why isn’t anybody here? Like, if I’m the supervisor of any CI squad in Seattle and I hear about this, I’m getting on with headquarters and saying, hey, some agent working child porn here may have [Hillary Clinton] emails. Get your -ss on the phone, call [the case agent], and get a copy of that drive, because that’s how you should be. And that nobody reached out to me within, like, that night, I still to this day I don’t understand what the hell went wrong.

And I told her, I’m a little scared here. I don’t know what to do because I’m not political. Like I don’t care who wins this election, but this is going to make us look really, really horrible. And it could ruin this case, too. And…I said the thing that also bothers me is that Comey’s testimony is inaccurate. And as a big admirer of the guy, and I think he’s a straight shooter, I wanted to, I felt like he needed to know, like, we got this. And I didn’t know if he did.

Although all the relevant information was given to the FBI by September 29, they came back to the agent weeks later to ask questions he’d repeatedly answered. But the FBI agents claimed that the information they learned in late October was new to them. The IG says this is not true: “By no later than September 29, the FBI had learned virtually every fact that was cited by the FBI in late October as justification for obtaining the search warrant for the Weiner laptop.”

The FBI claimed that they didn’t take action on the laptop because “1. The FBI Midyear team was waiting for additional information about the contents of the laptop from NYO, which was not provided until late October. 2. The FBI Midyear team could not review the emails without additional legal authority, such as consent or a new search warrant. 3. The FBI Midyear team and senior FBI officials did not believe that the information on the laptop was likely to be significant. 4. Key members of the FBI Midyear team had been reassigned to the investigation of Russian interference in the U.S. election, which was a higher priority.”

The IG said these excuses were hogwash, saying that the first was “unpersuasive,” the second “illogical,” the third “inconsistent” and “insufficient,” and the fourth “unpersuasive and concerning.” The overarching feeling of the report is that the FBI leaders who handled both the Clinton and Trump probes worked very hard to pretend the Weiner incident didn’t happen, only being forced by the New York office’s insistence that protocol be followed.

7. Breathtaking Bias

Some FBI defenders latched onto the IG’s claim that he “did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected the specific
investigative decisions we reviewed.” All that means is that none of the politically biased texts specifically said political bias was leading them to make certain decisions. Of course, that would be a weird thing to find in any case.

What the investigators found, however, was breathtaking anti-Trump and pro-Clinton bias from five of the key employees handling the Clinton email probe. No evidence was found of pro-Trump bias. And this evidence of profound bias is only for those who were foolish enough to record their extreme views. The IG also apparently had no texts from Justice Department officials, perhaps because Justice didn’t preserve them.

The texts range from vile insults of Trump and his supporters to fears about how awful a Trump presidency would be and the need to prevent it. One employee said Trump voters were “all poor to middle class, uneducated, lazy POS.” One FBI lawyer discussed feeling “numb” by Trump’s November 2016 election win, later proclaiming “Viva le Resistance” when asked about Trump.

Strzok wrote in July 2016, “Trump is a disaster. I have no idea how destabilizing his Presidency would be.” After the election, Page wrote that she’d bought “All the President’s Men,” adding, “Figure I needed to brush up on watergate.” The two openly fantasize about impeachment.

In the preparation to interview Clinton as part of the criminal probe, Page tells a handful of her colleagues to take it easy on Clinton. “One more thing: she might be our next president. The last thing you need us going in there loaded for bear.”

After each text exchange, the IG report includes defenses from the agents, some even harder to believe than the previous:

August 8, 2016: In a text message on August 8, 2016, Page stated, “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Strzok responded, ‘No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.’ When asked about this text message, Strzok stated that he did not specifically recall sending it, but that he believed that it was intended to reassure Page that Trump would not be elected, not to suggest that he would do something to impact the investigation.

Sure, hoss.

All five of the FBI employees were referred back to the FBI for disciplinary action.

8. Clinton Got Breaks, But Some Backfired

While Comey harmed Clinton with how he handled his public announcements about her case, the IG report paints an investigation that was overall quite favorable toward her and her associates. During the Robert Mueller investigation, the federal government has played hardball with Trump associates, ringing them up on false statement charges, raiding their offices, arresting them without warning, and encroaching on attorney-client relationships. For Clinton, a much different approach was taken.

To take just one example, look at the case of Paul Combetta, an employee who handled the migration of Clinton’s email accounts across servers then later deleted the emails. Clinton probe members were sure he was lying about the deletion of the emails in violation of a congressional preservation order. In repeated interviews, he claimed he didn’t delete her emails.

The agents had an email where he talked about the “Hilary coverup operation.” They decided that wasn’t a big deal. One agent said he believed Combetta should have been charged with “false statements for lying multiple times.” But overall they decided it was just so confusing, that the failure to tell the truth was “largely due to a lack of sophistication and poor legal representation.” They gave him immunity, and he started singing. He admitted deleting the emails “despite his awareness of Congress’s preservation order and his understanding that the order meant that ‘he should not disturb Clinton’s email data on the PRN server.'” Sounds nice.

It seems likely that Clinton’s handling of classified information on a secret server, and the FBI’s investigation of it, caused her problems during the 2016 election. But it’s also interesting how the efforts by many to help Clinton kept backfiring. More than anything, there is a lack of confidence that political considerations were absent from the decision to let Clinton skate.

President Obama gave interviews where he stated that Clinton didn’t have intent to harm national security, a talking point later carried by Comey himself. Even before Comey followed Obama’s lead, observers worried that Obama was giving guidance as opposed to offering his opinion. An Obama White House spokesman said he knew Clinton was not a “target” of the investigation, suggesting he had insider knowledge. The FBI claimed he didn’t have insider knowledge.

When the New York office told the FBI about Weiner’s laptop, it appears that the FBI tried to run out the election clock before dealing with it. It would have worked, too, if the New York office hadn’t pushed the matter right before the election — the absolute worst time to deal with a reopening of the investigation.

9. Obama Lied When He Said He Knew Nothing About Hillary’s Secret E-mail Scheme

The IG found that Obama was “one of the 13 individuals with whom Clinton had direct contact using her clintonemail[.]com account.”

In fact, Clinton used her private email for “an exchange with then President Obama while in the territory of a foreign adversary,” a move that led investigators to believe hostile actors had likely gained access to her server. But a paragraph in a draft of Comey’s exoneration of Clinton was changed from Obama to “another senior government official,” and later deleted.

Obama had falsely told reporters he didn’t know of Clinton’s private email system.

10. FBI Agent Joked Clinton Associate Who Lied Would Never Be Charged, Questioned Legitimacy Of Investigation

FBI agents discussed how a witness who obviously lied to them about the Clinton probe would never be charged:

FBI Employee: ‘boom…how did the [witness] go’
Agent 1: ‘Awesome. Lied his -ss off. Went from never inside the scif [sensitive compartmented information facility] at res, to looked in when it was being constructed, to removed the trash twice, to troubleshot the secure fax with HRC a couple times, to everytime there was a secure fax i did it with HRC. Ridic,’
FBI Employee: ‘would be funny if he was the only guy charged n this deal’
Agent 1: ‘I know. For 1001. Even if he said the truth and didnt have a clearance when handling the secure fax – aint noone gonna do sh-t’

That same agent also openly discussed political considerations affecting the Clinton probe. The IG gave a few examples:

January 15, 2016: Responding to a question of when the investigation would be finished, Agent 1 stated, ‘[M]y guess is March. Doesnt matter what we have, political winds will want to beat the Primarys.’
January 28, 2016: ‘…The case is the same is all of them. Alot of work and bullsh-t for a political exercise.’
February 1, 2016: ‘…Its primary season – so we’re being dictated to now….’
February 1, 2016: ‘This is the biggest political sh-t show of them all. No substance. Up at dawn – pride swallowing seige. No headset and hermetically sealed in SIOC.’
February 2, 2016: Responding to a question about how the investigation was going, ‘Going well…. Busy, and sometimes I feel for naught (political exercise), but I feel good….’
May 6, 2016, to Agent 5: ‘pretty bad news today…someone has breathed some political urgency into this…. Everyday DD brief and once a week D brief from now on.’

11. FBI’s Insulting Response

FBI Director Christopher Wray gave a press conference in front of a compliant press corps where he said, “nothing in this report impugns the integrity of our workforce as a whole or the FBI as an institution.” In fact, the report paints a picture of an FBI with a problematic culture.

It’s not just Comey’s usurpation of authority and failure to comply with practices. Multiple people were involved in his condemned decisions. Others were cited for bad judgement in recusal decisions or failure to adhere to recusals. Political bias was rampant in the team of people who handled both the Clinton and Trump email probes. So were leaks, accepting gifts from reporters, incompetence, and other problems.

Instead, Wray issued a strawman defense of employees, bragged about the high number of applicants to the agency, and talked about the low percentage of recruits who were accepted.

VIDEO - Obama State Dept - No Problem General Flynn & Incoming Admin Contacting Russian Ambassador

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Mueller’s Fruit of the Poisonous Tree
It makes no difference how honorable he is. His investigation is tainted by the bias that attended its origin in 2016.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation may face a serious legal obstacle: It is tainted by antecedent political bias. The June 14 report from Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general, unearthed a pattern of anti-Trump bias by high-ranking officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Some of their communications, the report says, were “not only indicative of a biased state of mind but imply a willingness to take action to impact a presidential candidate’s electoral prospects.” Although Mr. Horowitz could not definitively ascertain whether this bias “directly affected” specific FBI actions in the Hillary Clinton email investigation, it nonetheless affects the legality of the Trump-Russia collusion inquiry, code-named Crossfire Hurricane.

Crossfire was launched only months before the 2016 election. Its FBI progenitors—the same ones who had investigated Mrs. Clinton—deployed at least one informant to probe Trump campaign advisers, obtained Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court wiretap warrants, issued national security letters to gather records, and unmasked the identities of campaign officials who were surveilled. They also repeatedly leaked investigative information.

Mr. Horowitz is separately scrutinizing Crossfire and isn’t expected to finish for months. But the current report reveals that FBI officials displayed not merely an appearance of bias against Donald Trump, but animus bordering on hatred. Peter Strzok, who led both the Clinton and Trump investigations, confidently assuaged a colleague’s fear that Mr. Trump would become president: “No he won’t. We’ll stop it.” An unnamed FBI lawyer assigned to Crossfire told a colleague he was “devastated” and “numb” after Mr. Trump won, while declaring to another FBI attorney: “Viva le resistance.”

The report highlights the FBI’s failure to act promptly upon discovering that Anthony Weiner’s laptop contained thousands of Mrs. Clinton’s emails. Investigators justified the delay by citing the “higher priority” of Crossfire. But Mr. Horowitz writes: “We did not have confidence that Strzok’s decision to prioritize the Russia investigation over following up on [the] investigative lead discovered on the Weiner laptop was free from bias.”

Similarly, although Mr. Horowitz found no evidence that then-FBI Director James Comey was trying to influence the election, Mr. Comey did make decisions based on political considerations. He told the inspector general that his election-eve decision to reopen the Clinton email investigation was motivated by a desire to protect her assumed presidency’s legitimacy.

The inspector general wrote that Mr. Strzok’s text messages “created the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations.” The report adds, importantly, that “most of the text messages raising such questions pertained to the Russia investigation.” Given how biases ineluctably shape behavior, these facts create a strong inference that by squelching the Clinton investigation and building a narrative of Trump-Russia collusion, a group of government officials sought to bolster Mrs. Clinton’s electoral chances and, if the unthinkable happened, obtain an insurance policy to cripple the Trump administration with accusations of illegitimacy.

What does this have to do with Mr. Mueller, who was appointed in May 2017 after President Trump fired Mr. Comey? The inspector general concludes that the pervasive bias “cast a cloud over the FBI investigations to which these employees were assigned,” including Crossfire. And if Crossfire was politically motivated, then its culmination, the appointment of a special counsel, inherited the taint. All special-counsel activities—investigations, plea deals, subpoenas, reports, indictments and convictions—are fruit of a poisonous tree, byproducts of a violation of due process. That Mr. Mueller and his staff had nothing to do with Crossfire’s origin offers no cure.

When the government deprives a person of life, liberty or property, it is required to use fundamentally fair processes. The Supreme Court has made clear that when governmental action “shocks the conscience,” it violates due process. Such conduct includes investigative or prosecutorial efforts that appear, under the totality of the circumstances, to be motivated by corruption, bias or entrapment.Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation may face a serious legal obstacle: It is tainted by antecedent political bias. The June 14 report from Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general, unearthed a pattern of anti-Trump bias by high-ranking officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Some of their communications, the report says, were “not only indicative of a biased state of mind but imply a willingness to take action to impact a presidential candidate’s electoral prospects.” Although Mr. Horowitz could not definitively ascertain whether this bias “directly affected” specific FBI actions in the Hillary Clinton email investigation, it nonetheless affects the legality of the Trump-Russia collusion inquiry, code-named Crossfire Hurricane.

Crossfire was launched only months before the 2016 election. Its FBI progenitors—the same ones who had investigated Mrs. Clinton—deployed at least one informant to probe Trump campaign advisers, obtained Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court wiretap warrants, issued national security letters to gather records, and unmasked the identities of campaign officials who were surveilled. They also repeatedly leaked investigative information.

Mr. Horowitz is separately scrutinizing Crossfire and isn’t expected to finish for months. But the current report reveals that FBI officials displayed not merely an appearance of bias against Donald Trump, but animus bordering on hatred. Peter Strzok, who led both the Clinton and Trump investigations, confidently assuaged a colleague’s fear that Mr. Trump would become president: “No he won’t. We’ll stop it.” An unnamed FBI lawyer assigned to Crossfire told a colleague he was “devastated” and “numb” after Mr. Trump won, while declaring to another FBI attorney: “Viva le resistance.”

The report highlights the FBI’s failure to act promptly upon discovering that Anthony Weiner’s laptop contained thousands of Mrs. Clinton’s emails. Investigators justified the delay by citing the “higher priority” of Crossfire. But Mr. Horowitz writes: “We did not have confidence that Strzok’s decision to prioritize the Russia investigation over following up on [the] investigative lead discovered on the Weiner laptop was free from bias.”

Similarly, although Mr. Horowitz found no evidence that then-FBI Director James Comey was trying to influence the election, Mr. Comey did make decisions based on political considerations. He told the inspector general that his election-eve decision to reopen the Clinton email investigation was motivated by a desire to protect her assumed presidency’s legitimacy.

The inspector general wrote that Mr. Strzok’s text messages “created the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations.” The report adds, importantly, that “most of the text messages raising such questions pertained to the Russia investigation.” Given how biases ineluctably shape behavior, these facts create a strong inference that by squelching the Clinton investigation and building a narrative of Trump-Russia collusion, a group of government officials sought to bolster Mrs. Clinton’s electoral chances and, if the unthinkable happened, obtain an insurance policy to cripple the Trump administration with accusations of illegitimacy.

What does this have to do with Mr. Mueller, who was appointed in May 2017 after President Trump fired Mr. Comey? The inspector general concludes that the pervasive bias “cast a cloud over the FBI investigations to which these employees were assigned,” including Crossfire. And if Crossfire was politically motivated, then its culmination, the appointment of a special counsel, inherited the taint. All special-counsel activities—investigations, plea deals, subpoenas, reports, indictments and convictions—are fruit of a poisonous tree, byproducts of a violation of due process. That Mr. Mueller and his staff had nothing to do with Crossfire’s origin offers no cure.

When the government deprives a person of life, liberty or property, it is required to use fundamentally fair processes. The Supreme Court has made clear that when governmental action “shocks the conscience,” it violates due process. Such conduct includes investigative or prosecutorial efforts that appear, under the totality of the circumstances, to be motivated by corruption, bias or entrapment.

In U.S. v. Russell (1973), the justices observed: “We may someday be presented with a situation in which the conduct of law enforcement agents is so outrageous that due process principles would absolutely bar the government from invoking judicial processes to obtain a conviction.” It didn’t take long. In Blackledge v. Perry (1974), the court concluded that due process was offended by a prosecutor’s “realistic likelihood of ‘vindictiveness’ ” that tainted the “very initiation of proceedings.”

In Young v. U.S. ex rel. Vuitton (1987), the justices held that because prosecutors have “power to employ the full machinery of the state in scrutinizing any given individual . . . we must have assurance that those who would wield this power will be guided solely by their sense of public responsibility for the attainment of justice.” Prosecutors must be “disinterested” and make “dispassionate assessments,” free from any personal bias.

In Williams v. Pennsylvania (2016), the court held that a state judge’s potential bias violated due process because he had played a role, a quarter-century earlier, in prosecuting the death-row inmate whose habeas corpus petition he was hearing. The passage of time and involvement of others do not vitiate the taint but heighten “the need for objective rules preventing the operation of bias that might otherwise be obscured,” the justices wrote. A single biased individual “might still have an influence that, while not so visible . . . is nevertheless significant.”In Young v. U.S. ex rel. Vuitton (1987), the justices held that because prosecutors have “power to employ the full machinery of the state in scrutinizing any given individual . . . we must have assurance that those who would wield this power will be guided solely by their sense of public responsibility for the attainment of justice.” Prosecutors must be “disinterested” and make “dispassionate assessments,” free from any personal bias.

In Williams v. Pennsylvania (2016), the court held that a state judge’s potential bias violated due process because he had played a role, a quarter-century earlier, in prosecuting the death-row inmate whose habeas corpus petition he was hearing. The passage of time and involvement of others do not vitiate the taint but heighten “the need for objective rules preventing the operation of bias that might otherwise be obscured,” the justices wrote. A single biased individual “might still have an influence that, while not so visible . . . is nevertheless significant.”

In addition to the numerous anti-Trump messages uncovered by the inspector general, there is a strong circumstantial case—including personnel, timing, methods and the absence of evidence—that Crossfire was initiated for political, not national-security, purposes.

It was initiated in defiance of a longstanding Justice Department presumption against investigating campaigns in an election year. And while impartiality is always required, a 2012 memo by then-Attorney General Eric Holder emphasizes that impartiality is “particularly important in an election year,” and “politics must play no role in the decisions of federal prosecutors or investigators regarding any investigations. . . . Law enforcement officers and prosecutors may never select the timing of investigative steps or criminal charges for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.”

Strong evidence of a crime can overcome this policy, as was the case with the bureau’s investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s private email server, which began more than a year before the 2016 election. But Crossfire was not a criminal investigation. It was a counterintelligence investigation predicated on the notion that Russia could be colluding with the Trump campaign. There appears to have been no discernible evidence of Trump-Russia collusion at the time Crossfire was launched, further reinforcing the notion that it was initiated “for the purpose” of affecting the presidential election.

The chief evidence of collusion is the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s servers. But nothing in the public record suggests the Trump campaign aided that effort. The collusion narrative therefore hinges on the more generic assertion that Russia aimed to help Mr. Trump’s election, and that the Trump campaign reciprocated by embracing pro-Russian policies. Yet despite massive surveillance and investigation, there’s still no public evidence of any such exchange—only that Russia attempted to sow political discord by undermining Mrs. Clinton and to a lesser extent Mr. Trump.

Some members of the Trump team interacted with Russians and advocated dovish policies. But so did numerous American political and academic elites, including many Clinton advisers. Presidential campaigns routinely seek opposition research and interact with foreign powers. The Clinton campaign funded the Steele dossier, whose British author paid Russians to dish anti-Trump dirt. The Podesta Group, led by the brother of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, received millions lobbying for Russia’s largest bank and the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, both with deep Kremlin ties. The Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton took millions from Kremlin-connected businesses.

No evidence has emerged of Trump-Russia collusion, and Mr. Mueller has yet to bring collusion-related charges against anyone. Evidence suggests one of his targets, George Papadopoulos, was lured to London, plied with the prospect of Russian information damaging to Mrs. Clinton, and taken to dinner, where he drunkenly bragged that he’d heard about such dirt but never seen it. These circumstances not only fail to suggest Mr. Papadopoulos committed a crime, they reek of entrapment. The source of this information, former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, admits Mr. Papadopolous never mentioned emails, destroying any reasonable inference of a connection between the DNC hack and the Trump campaign.

Crossfire’s progenitors thus ignored an obvious question: If Russia promised unspecified dirt on Mrs. Clinton but never delivered it, how would that amount to collusion with the Trump campaign? If anything, such behavior suggests an attempt to entice and potentially embarrass Mr. Trump by dangling the prospect of compromising information and getting his aides to jump at it.

Given the paucity of evidence, it’s staggering that the FBI would initiate a counterintelligence investigation, led by politically biased staff, amid a presidential campaign. The aggressive methods and subsequent leaking only strengthen that conclusion. If the FBI sincerely believed Trump associates were Russian targets or agents, the proper response would have been to inform Mr. Trump so that he could protect his campaign and the country.

Mr. Trump’s critics argue that the claim of political bias is belied by the fact that Crossfire was not leaked before the election. In fact, there were vigorous, successful pre-election efforts to publicize the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. Shortly after Crossfire’s launch, CIA Director John Brennan and Mr. Comey briefed Congress, triggering predictable leaking. Christopher Steele and his patrons embarked on a media roadshow, making their dossier something of an open secret in Washington.

On Aug. 29, 2016, the New York Times published a letter to Mr. Comey from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, saying he’d learned of “evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign,” which had “employed a number of individuals with significant and disturbing ties to Russia and the Kremlin.” On Aug. 30, the ranking Democratic members of four House committees wrote a public letter to Mr. Comey requesting “that the FBI assess whether connections between Trump campaign officials and Russian interests” may have contributed to the DNC hack so as “to interfere with the U.S. presidential election.” On Sept. 23, Yahoo News’s Michael Isikoff reported the Hill briefings and the Steele dossier’s allegations regarding Carter Page. On Oct. 30, Harry Reid again publicly wrote Mr. Comey: “In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government.”

That these leaking efforts failed to prevent Mr. Trump’s victory, or that Mr. Comey’s ham-fisted interventions might have also hurt Mrs. Clinton’s electoral prospects, does not diminish the legal significance of the anti-Trump bias shown by government officials.

The totality of the circumstances creates the appearance that Crossfire was politically motivated. Since an attempt by federal law enforcement to influence a presidential election “shocks the conscience,” any prosecutorial effort derived from such an outrageous abuse of power must be suppressed. The public will learn more once the inspector general finishes his investigation into Crossfire’s genesis. But given what is now known, due process demands, at a minimum, that the special counsel’s activity be paused. Those affected by Mr. Mueller’s investigation could litigate such an argument in court. One would hope, however, that given the facts either Mr. Mueller himself or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would do it first.In addition to the numerous anti-Trump messages uncovered by the inspector general, there is a strong circumstantial case—including personnel, timing, methods and the absence of evidence—that Crossfire was initiated for political, not national-security, purposes.

It was initiated in defiance of a longstanding Justice Department presumption against investigating campaigns in an election year. And while impartiality is always required, a 2012 memo by then-Attorney General Eric Holder emphasizes that impartiality is “particularly important in an election year,” and “politics must play no role in the decisions of federal prosecutors or investigators regarding any investigations. . . . Law enforcement officers and prosecutors may never select the timing of investigative steps or criminal charges for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.”

Strong evidence of a crime can overcome this policy, as was the case with the bureau’s investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s private email server, which began more than a year before the 2016 election. But Crossfire was not a criminal investigation. It was a counterintelligence investigation predicated on the notion that Russia could be colluding with the Trump campaign. There appears to have been no discernible evidence of Trump-Russia collusion at the time Crossfire was launched, further reinforcing the notion that it was initiated “for the purpose” of affecting the presidential election.

The chief evidence of collusion is the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s servers. But nothing in the public record suggests the Trump campaign aided that effort. The collusion narrative therefore hinges on the more generic assertion that Russia aimed to help Mr. Trump’s election, and that the Trump campaign reciprocated by embracing pro-Russian policies. Yet despite massive surveillance and investigation, there’s still no public evidence of any such exchange—only that Russia attempted to sow political discord by undermining Mrs. Clinton and to a lesser extent Mr. Trump.

Some members of the Trump team interacted with Russians and advocated dovish policies. But so did numerous American political and academic elites, including many Clinton advisers. Presidential campaigns routinely seek opposition research and interact with foreign powers. The Clinton campaign funded the Steele dossier, whose British author paid Russians to dish anti-Trump dirt. The Podesta Group, led by the brother of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, received millions lobbying for Russia’s largest bank and the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, both with deep Kremlin ties. The Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton took millions from Kremlin-connected businesses.

No evidence has emerged of Trump-Russia collusion, and Mr. Mueller has yet to bring collusion-related charges against anyone. Evidence suggests one of his targets, George Papadopoulos, was lured to London, plied with the prospect of Russian information damaging to Mrs. Clinton, and taken to dinner, where he drunkenly bragged that he’d heard about such dirt but never seen it. These circumstances not only fail to suggest Mr. Papadopoulos committed a crime, they reek of entrapment. The source of this information, former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, admits Mr. Papadopolous never mentioned emails, destroying any reasonable inference of a connection between the DNC hack and the Trump campaign.

Crossfire’s progenitors thus ignored an obvious question: If Russia promised unspecified dirt on Mrs. Clinton but never delivered it, how would that amount to collusion with the Trump campaign? If anything, such behavior suggests an attempt to entice and potentially embarrass Mr. Trump by dangling the prospect of compromising information and getting his aides to jump at it.

Given the paucity of evidence, it’s staggering that the FBI would initiate a counterintelligence investigation, led by politically biased staff, amid a presidential campaign. The aggressive methods and subsequent leaking only strengthen that conclusion. If the FBI sincerely believed Trump associates were Russian targets or agents, the proper response would have been to inform Mr. Trump so that he could protect his campaign and the country.

Mr. Trump’s critics argue that the claim of political bias is belied by the fact that Crossfire was not leaked before the election. In fact, there were vigorous, successful pre-election efforts to publicize the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. Shortly after Crossfire’s launch, CIA Director John Brennan and Mr. Comey briefed Congress, triggering predictable leaking. Christopher Steele and his patrons embarked on a media roadshow, making their dossier something of an open secret in Washington.

On Aug. 29, 2016, the New York Times published a letter to Mr. Comey from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, saying he’d learned of “evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign,” which had “employed a number of individuals with significant and disturbing ties to Russia and the Kremlin.” On Aug. 30, the ranking Democratic members of four House committees wrote a public letter to Mr. Comey requesting “that the FBI assess whether connections between Trump campaign officials and Russian interests” may have contributed to the DNC hack so as “to interfere with the U.S. presidential election.” On Sept. 23, Yahoo News’s Michael Isikoff reported the Hill briefings and the Steele dossier’s allegations regarding Carter Page. On Oct. 30, Harry Reid again publicly wrote Mr. Comey: “In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government.”

That these leaking efforts failed to prevent Mr. Trump’s victory, or that Mr. Comey’s ham-fisted interventions might have also hurt Mrs. Clinton’s electoral prospects, does not diminish the legal significance of the anti-Trump bias shown by government officials.

The totality of the circumstances creates the appearance that Crossfire was politically motivated. Since an attempt by federal law enforcement to influence a presidential election “shocks the conscience,” any prosecutorial effort derived from such an outrageous abuse of power must be suppressed. The public will learn more once the inspector general finishes his investigation into Crossfire’s genesis. But given what is now known, due process demands, at a minimum, that the special counsel’s activity be paused. Those affected by Mr. Mueller’s investigation could litigate such an argument in court. One would hope, however, that given the facts either Mr. Mueller himself or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would do it first.

quote:

FBI sends classified letter to House GOP on use of informants in Trump campaign

The FBI on Friday sent a classified letter to House GOP officials disclosing whether the agency used top-secret confidential informants in the Trump campaign prior to opening an investigation into Russian election meddling, Fox News has learned.

Congressional Republicans had formally demanded an explanation from the FBI after numerous former Trump officials said they suspected the agency had attempted to infiltriate the campaign.

In a letter to House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes, R-Calif., obtained by Fox News, the FBI says its confidential explanation outlined whether the "FBI utilized confidential human sources prior to the issuance of the Electronic Communication initiating that investigation."

The agency added that it had forwarded House Republicans' request for summaries and transcripts of any conversations between Trump officials and informants to the director of national intelligence.



But Nunes wasn't satisfied with the FBI's reply, and sent a letter to Rosenstein demanding more answers -- including an explanation of how many informants were used, and at what expense -- by Monday evening, Fox News has learned.

There's lots of questions that are unanswered," House Judiciary Commitee Chair Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said in an exclusive interview on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures."

GOP Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., echoed that sentiment on Sunday, telling Fox News, "There is continual bad faith from the FBI and the Department of Justice."

Allegations that the FBI attempted to infiltrate the Trump campaign prior to the initiation of the formal Russia probe on July 31, 2016, have roiled Washington, amid numerous findings of anti-Trump bias among top officials at the agency.

In one instance, over drinks one evening at a high-end London hotel in the summer of 2016, an alleged FBI informant reportedly asked former Trump adviser George Papadopoulos if he knew anything about Russian attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election.

"If the FBI or DOJ was infiltrating a campaign for the benefit of another campaign, that is a really big deal,” President Trump tweeted in May.

The FBI also told Nunes it is still working to produce documents pertaining to Christopher Steele, the author of the salacious and unverified Trump dossier.

“Our efforts have resulted in the committees finally getting access to information that was sought months ago, but some important requests remain to be completed," AshLee Strong, a spokesperson for House Speaker Paul Ryan, said in a statement.

"Additional time has been requested for the outstanding items, and based on our understanding of the process we believe that request is reasonable," Strong added. "We expect the department to meet its full obligations to the two committees."

The House Judiciary Committee and House Intelligence Committee have requested more than a million documents from the FBI and DOJ related to the Clinton investigation and surveillance of members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential campaign.

But in a separate letter to the House Oversight Committee and the House Judiciary Committee last week, also obtained by Fox News, the FBI acknowledged that it still has not fully complied with the subpoenas.

"The FBI continues to diligently and expeditiously collect, review, and process ... materials related to communications between Peter Strzok and personnel in former FBI Deputy Director McCabe's office," the FBI's letter to House Oversight Chair Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and Goodlatte stated.

Strzok, the FBI agent facing criticism for writing a slew of anti-Trump text messages while he was leading the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email practices, was subpoenaed to appear before the House Judiciary Committee this week, Fox News confirmed Friday.

"We have a lot of questions for Mr. Strzok," Goodlatte said on "Sunday Morning Futures," calling the FBI agent's anti-Trump text messages "very disturbing."

"There are a lot of questions" as to whether the FBI intentionally hid some of the anti-Trump text messages, which were only unearthed by the DOJ watchdog during an independent probe, Goodlatte added.

The FBI's disclosures came days after Gowdy said on "Fox News Sunday" that House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., had warned FBI Director Christopher Wray that “there’s going to be action on the floor of the House this week if FBI and DOJ do not comply with our subpoena request.”

Nunes 'worried' if FBI is sending campaign informants

quote:

DoJ to Devin Nunes: We already ‘provided documents and answers to your inquiries’

The Justice Department responded to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes’ latest deadline, telling him he already has the “documents and answers” he has been inquiring about.

“Your letter asks whether the Department and the FBI ‘intend to obey’ the law. We believe that is exactly what the Department and the FBI have been doing responding to the Committee’s subpoenas and requests,” wrote Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd in a Monday letter obtained by the Washington Examiner.

Nunes, R-Calif., wrote a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Sunday in which he slammed the DOJ's Number 2 official for "unilaterally" restricting access to some subpoenaed documents to the "Gang of Eight," a term used to describe a bipartisan group of congressional leaders briefed on information relating to the FBI’s use of a confidential informant in the Trump campaign.

SPOILER

Om spoilers te kunnen lezen moet je zijn ingelogd. Je moet je daarvoor eerst gratis Registreren. Ook kun je spoilers niet lezen als je een ban hebt.

quote:

Op donderdag 7 juni 2018 20:01 schreef dellipder het volgende:
Gebaseerd op rapporten van de House Office of Inspector General.

Sources: Wasserman Schultz Screamed At House Officials To Kill Hacking Probe, Intervened In Pakistani Criminal Matter


[ afbeelding ]

Trump: 'Democrat IT Scandal Is A Key To Much Of The Corruption We See Today'

quote:

Op zaterdag 9 juni 2018 18:23 schreef dellipder het volgende:

James Comey Admits FBI Never Had Access To DNC Servers

quote:

Op woensdag 18 juli 2018 19:01 schreef dellipder het volgende:
All Americans need to know: Special Access Programs (SAPs) and Hillary Clinton

Special Access Programs - Above Top Secret - ORCON Papers

quote:

Op donderdag 19 juli 2018 07:58 schreef dellipder het volgende:
FBI Director: Chinese Espionage ‘Most Significant’ Spy Threat Facing US

quote:

Op vrijdag 20 juli 2018 19:29 schreef MrRatio het volgende:
Dit is ook een symptoom van weaponization: de medestanders de dans laten ontspringen. https://www.thegatewaypun(...)ison-for-same-crime/

Waarom is Mueller nog steeds in functie?
Tony Podesta huurde Manafort in, Manafort rommelde hierna wat met de belastingaangifte. Staat helemaal los van de verkiezingscampagne met Trump. Ook Tony Podesta rommelde met meldplichten. Manafort zit blijkbaar bij de verkeerde club, en moet daarvoor gepakt worden.

Immunisatie kan bedoeld zijn om de ene dader strafvermindering te geven om een veroordeling van hoofdverdachte mogelijk te maken. Cheryl Mills had als getuige, want naaste medewerker van Hillary Clinton, veel duidelijkheid kunnen geven hoe het ging met de emails. Cheryl Mills kreeg immunity zonder dat er iets tegenover stond. Dit is bananen-republiek, geen "and justice for all".

quote:

Op woensdag 6 juni 2018 04:39 schreef dellipder het volgende:

In de zaak van de heropening van de Clinton e-mail controverse heeft de FBI (lees: Peter Strzok en Andrew Mccabe) een aantal weken op het nieuws gezeten - en dus niet meteen het Congres ingelicht- dat er vertrouwelijke overheidsinformatie op de laptop van Anthony Wiener was gevonden.



bron

En dat de FBI uiteindelijk de zaak heropende had te maken met NYPD die de media wilde benaderen vanwege wat zij vonden op de laptop.
Ik heb over de backstory al een bericht gemaakt waarnaar ik wil verwijzen.

IG Reports 5 & 6 The Weiner Laptop

quote:

Op zaterdag 21 juli 2018 12:08 schreef Lavenderr het volgende:

[..]

Hier hadden we ooit een topic over op BNW, zal eens zoeken.