Tag Archives: Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

Why I Am Grateful For Judicial Watch

Posted on by

Judicial Watch posted the following Press Release yesterday:

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today announced it sent Acting FBI Director Andrew G. McCabe a warning letter concerning the FBI’s legal responsibility under the Federal Records Act (FRA) to recover records, including memos Comey subsequently leaked to the media, unlawfully removed from the Bureau by former Director James Comey. The June 14 letter from Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton states:

As you are well aware, former FBI Director James Comey gave sworn testimony last week before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Among other things, Mr. Comey confirmed that, while in office, he created various memoranda regarding his meetings with President Trump. Mr. Comey also confirmed that, after his departure from the FBI, he provided at least some of these memoranda to a third party, Columbia Law School Professor Daniel Richman, for the purpose of leaking them to the press. Various media outlets now have reported that Professor Richman has provided these memoranda to the FBI. It is unclear whether he still retains copies of the memoranda.

I am writing to you on behalf of Judicial Watch, Inc., a not-for-profit educational organization that seeks to promote transparency, accountability, and integrity in government and fidelity to the rule of law. In furtherance of its public interest mission, Judicial Watch regularly requests access to the records of the FBI through the Freedom of Information Act and disseminates its findings to the public. In fact, on May 16, 2017, Judicial Watch submitted a FOIA request seeking these specific memoranda removed from the FBI by Mr. Comey. Judicial Watch also has pending FOIA lawsuits in which the memoranda may be at issue.

These memoranda were created by Mr. Comey while serving as FBI director, were written on his FBI laptop, and concerned official government business. As such, they indisputably are records subject to the Federal Records Act. 44 U.S.C. §§ 2101-18, 2901-09, 3101-07, and 3301-14. The fact that Mr. Comey removed these memoranda from the FBI upon his departure, apparently for the purpose of subsequently leaking them to the press, confirms the FBI’s failure to retain and properly manage its records in accordance with the Federal Records Act. Even if Mr. Comey no longer has possession of these particular memoranda, as he now claims, some or all of these memoranda may still be in possession of a third party, such as Professor Richman, and must be recovered. Mr. Comey’s removal of these memoranda also suggests that other records may have been removed by Mr. Comey and may remain in his possession or in the possession of others. If so, these records must be recovered by the FBI as well.

As you may be aware, the Federal Records Act imposes a direct responsibility on you to take steps to recover any records unlawfully removed from the FBI. Specifically, upon learning of “any actual, impending, or threatened unlawful removal, defacing, alteration, corruption, deletion, erasure, or other destruction of records in the custody of the agency,” you must notify the Archivist of the United States. 44 U.S.C. § 3106. Upon learning that records have been unlawfully removed from the FBI, you then are required to initiate action through the Attorney General for the recovery of records. Id.

In the event you fail to take these steps, you should be aware that Judicial Watch is authorized under the law to file a lawsuit in federal district court seeking that you be compelled to comply with the law. Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Kerry, 844 F.3d 952, 955 (D.C. Cir. 2016); Armstrong v. Bush, 924 F.2d 282,296 (D.C. Cir. 1991). Please advise us no later than June 26, 2017 if you intend to take the action required under the law. If we do not hear from you by that date, we will assume that you do not intend to take any action. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

“Mr. Comey took government records and the FBI and Justice Department are obligated to get them back,” added Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.  “The former FBI director isn’t above the law and current leadership of the FBI should stop protecting him and take action.”

Judicial Watch is pursuing a lawsuit challenging the State Department’s failure to take any action to recover emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other employees unlawfully removed from the agency seeks to force State Department compliance with the Federal Records Act (FRA).  Judicial Watch argues the State Department and FBI never bothered to do a full search for Hillary Clinton’s government emails. This is one of several of Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuits seeking government records and information about the non-government email system used by Clinton.

 

Unfortunately The Odds Are Against An Honest Investigation

Posted on by

Someone once said, “It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes.” The same thing applies to investigations. If you look back on the history of Watergate, which I believe is the Democratic template guiding their current activities, you find out that Archibald Cox was a close friend of the Kennedy family and that the majority of the investigators he was working with came from the Bobby Kennedy team that investigated organized crime. There was no way that this was going to be a non-partisan group. This was a group of people who wanted to see Ted Kennedy elected President. They managed to turn a fourth rate burglary into a Presidential resignation. I believe that is the primary goal of those who supported Robert Mueller as a special prosecutor to find Russian involvement in the 2016 election. The secondary goal is to tie up the Trump Administration with lawsuits so that the Trump Agenda cannot move forward. There is no desire here to do what is right for the American people. This is simply the deep state gaining a legal foothold.

Yesterday Lifezette posted an article about the team Robert Mueller is assembling.

The article lists some members of the team:

One of the hires, Jeannie Rhee, also worked as a lawyer for the Clinton Foundation and helped persuade a federal judge to block a conservative activist’s attempts to force Bill and Hillary Clinton to answer questions under oath about operations of the family-run charity.

Campaign-finance reports show that Rhee gave Clinton the maximum contributions of $2,700 in 2015 and again last year to support her presidential campaign. She also donated $2,300 to Obama in 2008 and $2,500 in 2011. While still at the Justice Department, she gave $250 to the Democratic National Committee Services Corp.

The Clinton Foundation took large amounts of money from Russia. Do you think Ms. Rhee is going to want to investigate how much of that money was used in the campaign or exactly where it came from?

The list continues:

James Quarles, who worked on the Watergate investigation as a young prosecutor, has an even longer history of supporting Democratic politicians. He gave $1,300 to Obama in 2007 and $2,300 in 2008. He also gave $2,700 to Clinton last year.

Not exactly politically neutral.

And there’s more:

Andrew Weissmann, a former Justice Department lawyer who now is at Jenner & Block, contributed $2,300 to Obama in 2008 and $2,000 to the DNC Services Corp. in 2006. Weissmann served as chief of the Justice Department’s criminal fraud section and worked on the Enron fraud case.

A fourth lawyer on Mueller’s staff, Michael Dreeben, donated $1,000 to Clinton 2006 and $250 to Obama in both 2007 and 2008. He was deputy solicitor general and has appeared many times before the Supreme Court.

I know it would be politically unwise to fire the special prosecutor, but now that it has been stated numerous times that there was no connection between the Trump campaign and Russia, why are we still paying for this investigation? Is the special prosecutor going to investigate the unmasking of American citizens after taping their phone calls? Is the special prosecutor going to find out why the DNC would not let the FBI look at their computers after claiming that Russia had hacked them? Is the special prosecutor going to finally investigate Hillary’s private server and its security risks? I seriously doubt it.

Unfortunately we are in for an extended period of political theater. The political left is not interested in seeing America succeed–they are only interested in regaining the control they lost in the last election. If you doubt this, I would like to remind you of some recent history of special prosecutors. Patrick Fitzgerald charged Scooter Libby with revealing the identity of Valerie Plame. It was known when the investigation started that Richard Armitage was the leaker, but Scooter Libby was charged on a ‘process crime.’ He said something under oath that turned out to be not true (evidently his memory was not perfect–it was a minor point). Meanwhile, Valerie Plame, undercover agent, drove to CIA Headquarters every day to go to work. This is how twisted an investigation by a special prosecutor with an agenda can get.

Some Musings On The Events Of The Past Week

Posted on by

Former FBI Director James Comey admitted purposely leaking a memo to a friend who is a professor at Columbia Law School. He stated that he leaked the memo in the hopes of prompting the appointment of a special council. At this point, we need to remember that as FBI Director, James Comey had the power to appoint a special council. Why didn’t he? Possibly because that would be too obvious a political move.

Yesterday Legal Insurrection posted an article about some of the history between James Comey and Robert Mueller.

The article reports:

Whether they were just close professional friends, or consider themselves personally friendly, the fact is that they are not at arms length. This relationship, at least as reported, appears to be much more than the routine interactions you might expect two law enforcement officers to have had in the regular course of business.

Something doesn’t seem right here. Comey manipulated the system into getting his friend appointed Special Counsel, and now that friend will be investigating matters in which Comey is a key witness. More than that, Comey’s own actions in leaking government property raise legal issues as to whether Comey himself violated the law.

Even assuming Mueller is able to separate his past with Comey from his present investigation, that relationship damages the whole purpose of having a Special Counsel who is completely independent in fact and appearance.

In a truly independent investigation, friends shouldn’t be investigating friends. Mueller should step aside to remove the taint on the Special Counsel investigation created by friend and witness James Comey.

Unless Robert Mueller is willing to investigate the leakers in the Trump Administration, he should resign. The Russian question is already moot. The other thing he needs to investigate is the wiretapping of the Trump campaign and administration and who ordered and approved it. Unless he looks at those things, his investigation will be a sham.

The bottom line of this drama is simply–I posted an article about it in May:

The actions of the Democrats during Watergate provide a preview of what is happening now. Watergate was a high watermark in the politics of personal destruction. In his book, Inside the Real Watergate Conspiracy, the author, Geoff Shepard, states:

“It seems clear that without Cox’s intervention, the federal prosecutors would have issued indictments at least by August 1973, and the public’s desire to know that the government was seriously pursuing the Watergate case would have been fully satisfied. Indeed, on May 24, 1973, the U.S. attorney publicly stated that comprehensive indictments were imminent; and the prosecutorial memo submitted to Cox on his arrival stated that the case was all but closed.”

As Americans, we need to make sure that this sort of manipulation of the news does not happen again. Today we have an alternative media that we did not have then. Hopefully that will make a difference. At any rate, we need to be aware of what is being attempted.

If this so-called scandal can be dragged out (as Watergate was), it will cast a cloud over the Trump Administration and block President Trump’s agenda. That, along with retaking Congress, is the goal of both the deep state and the Democratic party. We need to keep this in mind as we watch the news.

Fake News Has Been Rampant Since President Trump Was Elected

Posted on by

The National Review posted an article yesterday that cited numerous examples of lies told to the American people by our media and so-called leaders in recent months. All of the liars knew at the time of their statements that the statements were not true. The article cited multiple examples of boldfaced lies Americans were encouraged to believe.

The article reports:

But with Comey’s repeated and emphatic testimony that Trump was not under investigation, we have some new revisionist history: wildly backtracking liberals and Democrats claiming that nobody ever said Trump was under FBI investigation. And this is simply untrue. Here’s a sampling of what Democrats, liberals, and the media were saying back when Comey was privately reassuring Trump that he wasn’t under investigation:

Salon, January 20 headline: “The FBI is leading an investigation into Donald Trump’s connections with Russia” — first line, “The FBI is leading a multi-agency investigation into possible links between Russian officials and President-elect Donald Trump.” Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, March 20: “The FBI is investigating a sitting President. Been a long time since that happened.”

…The Times: “Mr. Comey placed a criminal investigation at the doorstep of the White House and said officers would pursue it ‘no matter how long that takes.’” Russell Berman in The Atlantic, March 20 headline: “It’s Official: The FBI Is Investigating Trump’s Links to Russia”

…DemocracyNow! March 22 headline on that Schumer speech: “Sen. Schumer Calls on Democrats to Boycott Neil Gorsuch Vote While Trump is Under FBI Investigation”

…Rachel Maddow March 24 headline: “Schumer: Wrong to vote on Gorsuch while Trump under investigation.” Schumer told Maddow that “to have a president under investigation, appoint a lifetime appointment, it’s wrong.”

…John Aravosis at AmericaBlog, May 9 headline: “Trump fires FBI Director Comey, the man investigating Trump for treason”

The article concludes:

But in light of Comey’s repeated confirmation that the FBI was never investigating Trump during his tenure at the FBI, and that he had privately briefed both Trump and Congress to that effect, a whole lot of people — starting with Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren — owe President Trump an apology.

The media and the Democrats set the narrative. It didn’t matter that it was a lie. There are still a large number of Americans who believe the FBI was investigating President Trump. That is a problem for our representative republic. How can people make educated decisions about voting when they are being lied to?

 

 

 

Some Things Just Don’t Add Up Very Well

Posted on by

I am combining two stories related to former FBI Director James Comey‘s actions in the past year. The first story was posted at National Review by Andrew McCarthy yesterday, and the second story was posted at The Gateway Pundit yesterday.

The story at the National Review asks a very important question, “If the FBI had unmasked tapes of General Flynn’s conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, why did the FBI find it necessary to question General Flynn on the details of that conversation. Since there was nothing illegal in either the conversation or the content of the conversation, what was the justification for the questioning? What law had General Flynn broken?

The article at National Review explains:

Yet, Flynn was treated as if he were a suspect. So hot was the Obama Justice Department to make a case on him, it apparently even considered charging him with a violation of the Logan Act. That is a purported prohibition against freelance engagement in foreign policy by American citizens. Its constitutionality is so dubious that it has never been successfully prosecuted (and almost never invoked) in the two centuries it has been on the books.

The question here was whether the Justice Department wanted Flynn interrogated in the hope that he would not truthfully describe the conversation with Kislyak. Since they had a recording, any inaccuracy could then be charged as a false statement — a classic “process crime.”

It seems as if General Flynn’s civil rights were violated.

The article at The Gateway Pundit points out a glaring discrepancy in the actions of former Director Comey.  Former Director Comey has stated that he took notes on all meetings with President Trump. That was very conscientious of him.

However, The Gateway Pundit reports that he did not record the testimony of Hillary Clinton concerning her email server. The Gateway Pundit quotes an article from The Hill on July 7th of last year:

Hillary Clinton did not swear an oath to tell the truth before meeting with the FBI for three and a half hours last weekend, and the interview was not recorded, FBI Director James Comey told House lawmakers on Thursday.

The lack of a sworn oath does not remove the possibility of criminal penalties against Clinton if she lied to the FBI, though he said he had “no basis to conclude” that she was untruthful.

“Still a crime to lie to us,” Comey told the House Oversight Committee.
FBI policy is not to record interviews as part of its investigations.

Yet the revelations will nonetheless raise questions among Republicans, who have been skeptical of the FBI’s investigation and have demanded to see the transcript of the former secretary of State’s interview in downtown Washington on Saturday.

It is also interesting that as FBI Director, James Comey went along with the Justice Department’s request to call the email server investigation a ‘matter’ rather than an investigation. It seems to me that he is accusing the wrong people of interfering with an investigation or obstructing justice.

 

 

Slowly The Truth Comes Out

Posted on by

There are very few investigative reporters working in news media right now. I don’t claim to be one of them, but I truly appreciate the work they are doing, and when possible, try to share it. One internet site that I have recently become aware of is Circa. They have done a lot of investigating into illegal government surveillance of Americans.

Yesterday Circa posted an article about the sharing of spy data on American citizens by the FBI.

The article reports:

The FBI has illegally shared raw intelligence about Americans with unauthorized third parties and violated other constitutional privacy protections, according to newly declassified government documents that undercut the bureau’s public assurances about how carefully it handles warrantless spy data to avoid abuses or leaks.

In his final congressional testimony before he was fired by President Trump this month, then-FBI Director James Comey unequivocally told lawmakers his agency used sensitive espionage data gathered about Americans without a warrant only when it was “lawfully collected, carefully overseen and checked.”

Once-top secret U.S. intelligence community memos reviewed by Circa tell a different story, citing instances of “disregard” for rules, inadequate training and “deficient” oversight and even one case of deliberately sharing spy data with a forbidden party.

I have a friend who once worked for the National Security Agency (NSA). I year or so ago, he assured me that the agency was not spying on Americans. Recently, he told me that he had been wrong. The group he worked with was dealing with foreign issues and played by the rules. Since that time he has learned that not everyone played by the rules. He was heartbroken when he realized that. I say that to remind everyone that we have good people working in our investigative and security agencies. The challenge for the Trump Administration will be to get the people who have abused their positions out. FBI Director Comey was a good place to start. Criminal charges are also in order where laws have been broken.

The article further reports:

For instance, a ruling declassified this month by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) chronicles nearly 10 pages listing hundreds of violations of the FBI’s privacy-protecting minimization rules that occurred on Comey’s watch.

The behavior the FBI admitted to a FISA judge just last month ranged from illegally sharing raw intelligence with unauthorized third parties to accessing intercepted attorney-client privileged communications without proper oversight the bureau promised was in place years ago.

The court also opined aloud that it fears the violations are more extensive than already disclosed. 

“The Court is nonetheless concerned about the FBI’s apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI is engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported,” the April 2017 ruling declared.

All of this is part of the ‘deep state’ that is being used to undermine the Trump Administration. All members of the deep state need to receive their pink slips as soon as possible.

Using Watergate As A Template

Posted on by

The Watergate Scandal began a period of Democratic control of Washington that essentially lasted until the 1990’s. Ronald Reagan won the Presidency, but the Democrats controlled Congress. The Watergate Scandal played a role in the Democrats obtaining and keeping that power. It was their high watermark of political influence. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that they would like to repeat their success. Unfortunately for the Republican party, this time they have a few turncoat Republicans helping them.

This is a quote from an article I posted in March:

The actions of the Democrats during Watergate provide a preview of what is happening now. Watergate was a high watermark in the politics of personal destruction. In his book, Inside the Real Watergate Conspiracy, the author, Geoff Shepard, states:

“It seems clear that without Cox’s intervention, the federal prosecutors would have issued indictments at least by August 1973, and the public’s desire to know that the government was seriously pursuing the Watergate case would have been fully satisfied. Indeed, on May 24, 1973, the U.S. attorney publicly stated that comprehensive indictments were imminent; and the prosecutorial memo submitted to Cox on his arrival stated that the case was all but closed.”

As Americans, we need to make sure that this sort of manipulation of the news does not happen again. Today we have an alternative media that we did not have then. Hopefully that will make a difference. At any rate, we need to be aware of what is being attempted.

As Democrats and some Republicans applaud the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel there are some things we need to remember. First of all–no investigation has turned up any evidence of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign to impact the 2016 election. Second of all–the longer these accusations can be dragged out, the more people will accept them as fact. Third of all–if the Democrats can turn the heat up high enough with fake stories, they may be able at least to vote on impeachment. The don’t have the votes to impeach President Trump, but impeachment hearings might win them some votes among some Americans (or it could seriously cost them votes as the impeachment of Bill Clinton cost the Republicans votes).

What we have watched this week is political theater. Unfortunately it is political theater played without any sense of truth or fairness. It is a glaring example of the fact that the swamp in Washington needs to be drained–and Donald Trump is not the problem. The media has created chaos with anonymous sources and unseen memos. The chaos is not from the Trump Administration, it is from a media that is trying very hard to reverse the votes of the American people.

A Few Reminders About Current Accusations

Posted on by

I don’t even have the words to explain how tired I am of hearing the accusation that Russia helped Donald Trump win the election. The obvious answer to this charge is ‘how?’ However, as this charge is bandied about, there are a few things that need to be noted.

The investigation into the so-called Russian interference began with an alliance between John Brennan, CIA Director, and British Intelligence. In April I reported (here) that the ex-MI6 agent who created the dossier that accused President Trump of behaving badly in Russia was being paid by Fusion GPS to perform opposition research against Donald Trump. That dossier was part of the basis for the wiretapping and investigation into Donald Trump and Russia.

I want to back up and take a look at one of the people involved in the charges against President Trump regarding Russia. I would like to note at this point that so far there is no evidence of any wrongdoing between President Trump and Russia. But let’s look at who is involved in the investigation.

John Brennan was Director of the CIA until President Trump took office. When President Trump took office, John Brennan was replaced by Mike Pompeo. It was assumed in 2016 that the next President of the United States would be Hillary Clinton. There were a lot of people in Washington doing a lot of things to ensure that they would remain in their positions under a Clinton presidency. FBI Director Comey probably would have assured his position in the new administration by his July press conference where he listed the charges against Hillary Clinton and invented a new reason not to prosecute her–she didn’t intentionally break the law. John Brennan would have preferred a Hillary Clinton presidency because she would have continued President Obama’s policies that chose to ignore the relationship between Islam and terrorism.

It is important to remember that in October 2011, then Assistant to the President for Homeland Security, John Brennan, received a letter from Farhana Khera, President and Executive Director of Muslim Advocates. The letter demanded an embargo or discontinuation of information and materials relating to Islamic-based terrorism. The letter insisted that officers, analysts, special agents, and decision-makers who created or made these materials available be fired or re-trained. In 2012, that purge was executed. Evidently, John Brennan was not serious about dealing with Islamic terrorism. President Trump obviously takes a different view.

There is a swamp in Washington that needs to be drained. All efforts to drain this swamp will be met by resistance by the Washington elite, the media, and those in the swamp seeking to retain their jobs. Please keep this in mind as you follow the news and attempt to sort fact from fiction. Keep in mind that Russia had no reason to help Donald Trump win the election and every reason to want Hillary Clinton to become President–in addition to the fact that Hillary could be blackmailed (her private server was probably hacked by at least three or four foreign powers), Hillary had been such a failure at the State Department, there was no reason to believe that she would actually accomplish anything as President. It should be noted here that frequent flyer miles are not an accomplishment.

While the media is attempting to distract us with a totally irrelevant and useless investigation of cooperation between candidate Trump and Russia, they are ignoring a lot. There have been some major accomplishments during the beginning of the Trump Administration–undoing some of the regulations that are crippling American businesses, discussions with foreign leaders that have led to some apparent cooperation between the U.S. and China, and some substantial reductions in government spending. These have been overlooked (I believe purposely) in favor of a fake scandal. It is time to realize that the mainstream media has become a force for political propaganda. Because of that, they need to be ignored.

It Wasn’t A Unilateral Decision

Posted on by

This article is based on two sources–an article posted at Lifezette today and an article from the BBC, also dated today.

The article at Lifezette reminds us that until President Trump fired FBI Director Comey, the Democrats wanted Director Comey fired.

The article reports:

Comey, being Comey, closed the new investigation in record time, ending the investigation two days before Election Day and enraging Republicans by publicly declaring he still would not recommend charges against Clinton.

Schumer indicated Comey’s handling of the matter was a deal-breaker.

“I do not have confidence in him any longer,” Schumer said of Comey on Nov. 2.

Schumer called Comey’s letter to Congress “appalling.”

Schumer is far from the only Democrat who has questioned Comey’s judgement or called for his firing.

…”This is not fake news. Intelligence officials are hiding connections to the Russian government. There is no question,” then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said in a Dec. 10 interview on MSNBC. “Comey knew and deliberately kept this info a secret,” he said.

The MSNBC host asked Reid if Comey should resign. “Of course, yes,” Reid replied.

 Comey’s decision to publicly reopen the Clinton investigation drove Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) to also demand the FBI director resign.

“I called on FBI Director James Comey to resign his position after his recent communication with members of Congress regarding the bureau’s review of emails potentially related to Hillary Clinton’s personal email server,” Cohen wrote in a Nov. 3 op-ed published in The Hill.

It gets better.

The BBC posted a copy of the letter written by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recommending that Director Comey be fired. Follow the link above to read the entire letter.

Director Comey made some unusual decisions during the run-up to the November 2016 election. There are some valid questions as to whether or not the FBI was politicized under President Obama. It is very obvious that the Justice Department was compromised, but the jury is still out on the FBI.

I don’t know whether or not this is part of draining the swamp. I do know that draining the swamp is going to be a long term, ongoing operation, and I wish President Trump all the best in doing that.

The Truth Will Eventually Come Out

Posted on by

Townhall.com posted an article today about a recent New York Times story about the actions of Attorney General Loretta Lynch during the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

The Townhall article reports:

In a lengthy New York Times piece, the publication charted the history of Mr. Comey’s actions, which placed the FBI in the eye of the 2016 election. We also found out that the Obama Justice Department tried to water down the language, like calling the investigation a “matter,” and playing down the fact that the FBI’s investigation was a criminal one [emphasis mine]:

The Justice Department knew a criminal investigation was underway, but officials said they were being technically accurate about the nature of the referral. Some at the F.B.I. suspected that Democratic appointees were playing semantic games to help Mrs. Clinton, who immediately seized on the statement to play down the issue. “It is not a criminal investigation,” she said, incorrectly. “It is a security review.”

In September of that year, as Mr. Comey prepared for his first public questions about the case at congressional hearings and press briefings, he went across the street to the Justice Department to meet with Ms. Lynch and her staff.

Both had been federal prosecutors in New York — Mr. Comey in the Manhattan limelight, Ms. Lynch in the lower-wattage Brooklyn office. The 6-foot-8 Mr. Comey commanded a room and the spotlight. Ms. Lynch, 5 feet tall, was known for being cautious and relentlessly on message. In her five months as attorney general, she had shown no sign of changing her style.

At the meeting, everyone agreed that Mr. Comey should not reveal details about the Clinton investigation. But Ms. Lynch told him to be even more circumspect: Do not even call it an investigation, she said, according to three people who attended the meeting. Call it a “matter.”

Ms. Lynch reasoned that the word “investigation” would raise other questions: What charges were being investigated? Who was the target? But most important, she believed that the department should stick by its policy of not confirming investigations.

It was a by-the-book decision. But Mr. Comey and other F.B.I. officials regarded it as disingenuous in an investigation that was so widely known. And Mr. Comey was concerned that a Democratic attorney general was asking him to be misleading and line up his talking points with Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, according to people who spoke with him afterward.

As the meeting broke up, George Z. Toscas, a national security prosecutor, ribbed Mr. Comey. “I guess you’re the Federal Bureau of Matters now,” Mr. Toscas said, according to two people who were there.

Despite his concerns, Mr. Comey avoided calling it an investigation. “I am confident we have the resources and the personnel assigned to the matter,” Mr. Comey told reporters days after the meeting.

Please follow the link above to the Townhall article. The article goes on to list some of the problems the FBI encountered while trying not to politicize the investigation.

The article at Townhall further reports:

The Russian collusion allegations have yet to bear fruit. Senate Democrats have admitted that their investigation into possible collision might not find a smoking gun. Over at the House side, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), ranking member of the intelligence committee (and Democratic attack dog), said that there is no definitive proof of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. As for the interference, well, the election wasn’t hacked in the sense that many on the Left think (i.e. messing with vote tallies), instead it was a concerted effort by state-funded media outlets and social media trolls. None of which had an impact in swaying the election and fake news played no pivotal role either.

Some of the mainstream media is still claiming Russian interference. No one has evidence of that, but I believe that the feeling is that if they claim it long enough, some people will accept it is fact, even though it is not true.

I don’t know what the eventual outcome of Hillary Clinton and her private server will be. I do know that if John Q Public had handled classified information as carelessly as she did, he would be in jail. That clearly illustrates a problem within our legal system.

The Story vs. The Spin

Posted on by

Yesterday The Washington Post reported some interesting information about the allegations that President Obama used electronic surveillance on President Trump’s campaign and transition team. I seriously wonder if anything will come of this, but I believe we have a smoking gun.

The article reports:

The FBI obtained a secret court order last summer to monitor the communications of an adviser to presidential candidate Donald Trump, part of an investigation into possible links between Russia and the campaign, law enforcement and other U.S. officials said.

The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page’s communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials.

This is the clearest evidence so far that the FBI had reason to believe during the 2016 presidential campaign that a Trump campaign adviser was in touch with Russian agents. Such contacts are now at the center of an investigation into whether the campaign coordinated with the Russian government to swing the election in Trump’s favor.

I would like someone to explain to me how the Russian government could swing the election in Trump’s favor. The investigation into any Russian involvement in the Trump campaign is nothing more than a smoke screen for the illegal surveillance done by the Obama Administration.

The New York Post reported yesterday:

In what the paper (The Washington Post) described as a lengthy declaration, the government said Page “engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of Moscow.”

The application was submitted in July and the ensuing 90-day warrant has been renewed at least once, the paper reported.

The government agencies are trying to determine whether Page or any other members of the Trump campaign had improper contacts Russian agents as the Kremlin sought to influence the presidential election.

Page told the paper that he was just a target in a political hit campaign.

“This confirms all of my suspicions about unjustified, politically motivated government surveillance,” Page told The Washington Post Tuesday. “I have nothing to hide.”

This makes Watergate look like amateur hour. People went to jail because of the Watergate break-in. People should go to jail for the surveillance of the Trump campaign and the Trump transition team. What was done was unconstitutional and a violation of the civil rights of the people under surveillance. The leaking of this information with the names unmasked was also a violation of the law. If no one is held accountable, then the precedent is set that unwarranted surveillance of American citizens and releasing the information is acceptable.

 

It’s Amazing What Comes To The Surface

Posted on by

Politico posted an update today on the hearings in the House Intelligence Committee.

The article reports:

Members of the Donald Trump transition team, possibly including Trump himself, were under U.S. government surveillance following November’s presidential election, House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) told reporters Wednesday.

Nunes said the monitoring appeared to be done legally as a result of what’s called “incidental collection,” but said he was concerned because it was not related to the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s meddling in the election and was widely disseminated across the intelligence community.

“I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show that the president-elect and his team were, I guess, at least monitored,” Nunes told reporters. “It looks to me like it was all legally collected, but it was essentially a lot of information on the president-elect and his transition team and what they were doing.”

Nunes said he is heading to the White House later Wednesday to brief Trump on what he has learned, which he said came from “sources who thought that we should know it.” He said he was trying to get more information by Friday from the FBI, CIA and NSA.

Nunes described the surveillance as most likely being “incidental collection.” This can occur when a person inside the United States communicates with a foreign target of U.S. surveillance. In such cases, the identities of U.S. citizens are supposed to be kept secret — but can be “unmasked” by intelligence officials under certain circumstances.

…It was previously known that Flynn’s pre-inauguration phone calls with Russia’s ambassador were intercepted by the U.S. government; he resigned last month after it became clear he misled his colleagues about the nature of the calls.

Nunes has said Flynn’s calls were picked up through incidental collection and said his committee is investigating why Flynn’s name was unmasked and leaked to the news media.

Obviously, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s phone calls with the Russian ambassador were taped and transcribed. Because he has talking to the Russian ambassador, that is not unusual. What is unusual is for the transcripts of those calls to be leaked to the press with his name on them. That is against the law. The person who did that belongs in prison.

As this investigation continues, it is becoming obvious that candidate Donald Trump was under government surveillance during the campaign and after he was elected. That is a serious violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. This surveillance is one reason many Congressmen opposed the Patriot Act–they feared the kind of political abuse of the law that the Obama Administration was evidently guilty of. There are many stories out there documenting the surveillance of Donald Trump and his campaign. I have not posted some of them because I am not familiar with the sources. However, those sources are beginning to look reliable.

Don’t Get Lost In The False Narrative

Posted on by

As I sit here writing this post, I am listening to the news. The news is telling me that a number of Democrats will not attend the inauguration of President Trump because they feel that he is an illegitimate President. Hopefully most Americans realize how ridiculous this charge is. However, there is a full-blown effort by the media and the political left to undermine Donald Trump before he is even sworn in as President.

Andrew McCarthy posted an article at National Review yesterday detailing one aspect of the attack on soon-to-be President Trump. The article deals with the strategy behind the Justice Department Inspector General’s review of some aspects of the Justice Department’s handing of the Hillary Clinton email scandal. Mr. McCarthy explains how the parameters of this investigation will make sure the investigation determines exactly what the political left wants the investigation to determine. It is important to note that the investigation will not look into the meeting between Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch on the tarmac in Arizona during the Justice Department investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private server. They will not look into immunity granted to witnesses and evidence destroyed during the original investigation. They will not look at ways in which Mrs. Clinton‘s private server compromised national security. So what is going on here?

The article explains:

The aim is obvious: If Comey’s statements were against protocol, then they will be portrayed as violations that caused Clinton to lose — the argument will be that Trump’s victory was as razor thin as it gets, Clinton decisively won the popular vote, so surely Comey’s impropriety is what swung the few thousand votes Clinton would have needed in key states to win in the Electoral College. Therefore, the narrative goes: Trump’s victory, and thus his presidency, is illegitimate.

…The Democrats erase your first argument by reducing the whole election down to the e-mails investigation, such that Mrs. Clinton’s many other flaws as a candidate do not matter. The Democrats erase your second argument by making sure the IG investigation focuses on James Comey, not on Hillary Clinton’s crimes and the Justice Department’s outrageous machinations to make sure she was not prosecuted for those crimes.
There you have it. The public’s perception of Trump’s legitimacy may hinge on the public’s understanding of the Justice Department inspector-general’s probe. The Democrats fully grasp this and are lining things up so that they’ll win before Republicans even realize the game is on.

I hope most Americans will see through this dog and pony show. It is really sad that the political left is doing everything it can to damage the Presidency of Donald Trump even before he is sworn in. If Donald Trump is such a horrible person with such bad ideas, why not just sit back and wait for him to fail? It is disheartening to hear politicians on the left repeating charges that have no proof behind them as if they were fact. Unfortunately I think this is going to get worse. The only cure for the lying media is for Americans to stop listening to the mainstream media and their lies. Maybe at that point, the mainstream media will realize that it is in their best interests (and the interests of America) to report the truth.

Perspective

Posted on by

The National Review posted an article today about all the gnashing of teeth on the Democratic side of the aisle about the letter FBI Director James Comey sent to Congress (sent to Republicans and Democrats–not just Republicans as the Clinton campaign claimed). The article reminds us that Director Comey is not the person actually responsible for the problems of the Democratic Presidential Candidate.

The article reports:

In July, the same James Comey contorted himself into rhetorical pretzels to avoid recommending Hillary Clinton be prosecuted for exposing classified information, despite laying out a compelling case that she would be facing serious charges were she possessed of any surname besides the one she has. He settled on saying that while she was “extremely reckless,” her actions did not constitute “gross negligence,” a distinction that remains unclear.

Democrats were miffed that Comey had the audacity to go even that far, but, all in all, he was praised as a fine public servant. As my colleague Andy McCarthy has explained at length, Comey’s press conference was an extravagant departure from Justice Department protocol, but Democrats were more than comfortable pardoning Comey’s excesses then, since he had acted in the service of helpful ends. He just wanted to “stay out” of the election, they explained.

The feeling among Democrats is that when Director Comey wrote the letter to Congress, his actions aided the Trump campaign.

The article reminds us of the root of the problem:

This is the type of ends-justifies-means thinking that has guided Democrats since the beginning of this process, conveniently occluding their ability to recall that this whole problem is entirely of their own making. It was Hillary Clinton who set up a private e-mail server, almost certainly to evade federal transparency laws. It was Hillary Clinton who, in violation of the law, sent dozens of classified e-mails from the unsecured private account run through that server. It was Hillary Clinton who swore under oath that she had surrendered to investigators all work-related e-mails. It was Democrats who then went and nominated the woman under FBI investigation. And it was Loretta Lynch, a Democratic attorney general, who met with Bill Clinton behind closed doors on an airport tarmac in Phoenix and compromised any possibility of her trustworthiness when it came to this investigation.

It is already becoming obvious to those of us old enough to remember the 1990’s that a Hillary Clinton presidency would be nothing more than Hillary Clinton operating under a veil of secrecy and covering up any of her actions that Americans became aware of. That is not a recipe for a successful presidency.

 

 

There May Be Another Shoe To Drop

Posted on by

On Wednesday, Fox News reported a recent comment by FBI Director James Comey about the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. Mrs. Clinton has repeatedly stated while on the campaign trail that the FBI is conducting a mere “security inquiry.”

The article at Fox News reported:

But when asked Wednesday by Fox News about Clinton’s characterization of the bureau’s probe, FBI Director James Comey said he doesn’t know what “security inquiry” means — adding, “We’re conducting an investigation. … That’s what we do.”

The FBI director reiterated that he’s “not familiar with the term security inquiry” when told that is the phrase Clinton has used.

As for the timeline for the investigation, Comey, during a briefing with reporters, said he prefers doing the investigation “well” over promptly and said he’s not “tethered” to a schedule.

The people that I know who have held security clearances and handled classified material have all said that there is no question that Mrs. Clinton broke a number of laws during her time as Secretary of State. It will be very interesting to see if she is ever held accountable for her actions.

Is The Justice Department Just?

Posted on by

The American Thinker posted an article today about some recent remarks made by White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. In what I am sure was an innocent attempt to blunt the force of new revelations about Hillary Clinton and her emails, Mr. Earnest stated, “That will be a decision made by the Department of Justice and prosecutors over there. What I know that some officials over there have said is that she is not a target of the investigation. So that does not seem to be the direction that it’s trending. But I’m certainly not going to weigh in on a decision or in that process in any way. That is a decision to be made solely by independent prosecutors but again, based on what we know from the Department of Justice, it does not seem to be headed in that direction.”

There are some problems with this statement. How do ‘we’ know anything from the Department of Justice?

The article reminds us:

It would be entirely improper for the White House to be in communication with the Justice Department over an ongoing criminal investigation. This would constitute political interference. A congressional committee could well issue a subpoena for Earnest, which would raise the Watergate flag when executive privilege likely would be claimed.

Second, this claim is likely to infuriate the FBI and those DoJ prosecutors with integrity. The normally staid ace reporter Catherine Herridge used the expression “super pissed off” to describe it to Greta Van Susteren.

There are people of integrity working in our government. I suspect they are having a very difficult time right now. I wish this story would go away. I am tired of it, as I am sure most Americans are, but there is the concept of ‘equal justice under the law’ which on the surface seems to have been violated. That aspect of this needs to be investigated, along with finding out what damage was done by the mishandling of classified information that Secretary of State Clinton exhibited.