[WSJ] Christopher Wray was supposed to bring a new candor and credibility to the FBI after the James Comey debacle, but the country is still waiting. The director’s testimony Thursday to the House Judiciary Committee suggests he has joined the Justice Department effort to stop the public from learning about the bureau’s role in the 2016 election.
Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte invited Mr. Wray to answer the multiplying questions about the bureau’s 2016 political interference. This includes the role that the Steele dossier‐opposition research financed by the Clinton campaign‐played in the FBI’s decision to investigate the Trump presidential campaign. The committee also wants answers about reports that special counsel Robert Mueller demoted Peter Strzok, a lead FBI investigator in both the Trump and Hillary Clinton email investigations, after Mr. Strzok exchanged anti-Trump texts with his mistress, who also works at the FBI.
Mr. Wray spent five hours stonewalling. The director ducked every question about the FBI’s behavior by noting that the Justice Department Inspector General is investigating last year’s events.
Is Mr. Wray concerned that Mr. Strzok edited the FBI’s judgment of Mrs. Clinton’s handling of her emails to "extremely careless" from "grossly negligent" in a previous draft? The grossly negligent phrase might have put Mrs. Clinton in legal jeopardy, but Mr. Wray said he couldn’t answer because that is subject to the "outside, independent investigation."
Is Mr. Wray taking steps to ensure his top ranks are free of political "taint"? He couldn’t say because of the "outside, independent" investigation.
Ohio Republican Jim Jordan noted that the only way for Congress to know if the FBI used the Steele dossier to obtain a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign is for the FBI to provide its application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. "Is there anything prohibiting you from showing this committee [that application]?" Mr. Jordan asked.
Mr. Wray’s answer was dismissive. "I do not believe that I can legally and appropriately share a FISA court submission with this committee," said Mr. Wray. "When I sign FISA applications, which I have to do almost every day of the week, they are all covered with a ’classified information’ cover."
This is an excuse, not a serious reason. The IG is a watchdog created by Congress to investigate executive misbehavior. It was never intended to supplant congressional oversight, much less be an excuse for executive officials to protect their decisions from scrutiny.
As for hiding behind "classified information," the House Intelligence Committee that is investigating Russian campaign meddling has appropriate clearances. Mr. Goodlatte reminded Mr. Wray that the Judiciary Committee also has primary jurisdiction over the FISA court.
The FISA application is central to the issue of Russian meddling and whether the FBI used disinformation to trigger a counterintelligence investigation of a U.S. presidential candidate. Congress and the U.S. need to know not only if Trump officials were colluding with Russians but also if Russia and the Clinton campaign used false information to dupe the FBI into intervening in a U.S. election. Yet the FBI and Justice have been stonewalling House Intelligence for months.
The lack of cooperation has become more troubling amid reports that senior career Justice officials have a partisan motivation. Judicial Watch last week released emails showing that Mr. Mueller’s top lieutenant, Andrew Weissmann, praised Obama holdover and acting Attorney General Sally Yates in January for defying Mr. Trump on his travel ban.
Justice also confirmed a Fox News report last week that one of its top lawyers, Bruce Ohr, was in contact with Christopher Steele (the dossier author) before the election, and after the election with Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, the opposition-research firm that hired Mr. Steele. Mr. Ohr was demoted, which suggests his contacts were unauthorized.
By the way, the chief law enforcement officer of the United States is the President. This means he has the legal authority through his deputies at the White House and Justice to see the FISA application. AG Jeff Sessions is recused from the Russia probe, which complicates his access because we don’t know the extent of his recusal. But Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein supervises the FBI when Mr. Sessions does not.
Mr. Rosenstein can and should order the FBI to meet Congress’s document requests including the FISA application. If he refuses, then Mr. Trump through White House counsel Donald McGahn can order him to do so. Mr. Rosenstein could choose to resign rather than comply, but he will not have the law on his side.
The easy way to solve this standoff is for executive officials, including the FBI, to do their duty and cooperate with the duly elected Members of Congress. If they don’t, sterner measures like a finding of contempt of Congress will be needed.
[National Review] The FISA-gate, Clinton emails, and Uranium One scandals are sort of reaching a consensus. Many things quite wrong and illegal were done by both Hillary Clinton and her entourage and members of the Obama agencies and administration ‐ both the acts themselves and the cover-ups and omissions that ensued.
Remember, in the FISA-gate scandal such likely widespread criminal behavior was predicated on two premises: 1) certainty of an easy Clinton victory, after which the miscreants would be not only excused but probably rewarded for their zeal; 2) progressive hubris in which our supposedly moral betters felt it their right, indeed their duty, to use unethical and even unlawful means for the "greater good" ‐ to achieve their self-described moral ends of stopping the crude and reactionary Trump.
The wrongdoing probably includes attempting to warp a U.S. election, Russian collusion, repeatedly misleading and lying before the FISA courts, improperly surveilling American citizens, unmasking the names of citizens swept up in unlawful surveillance and then illegally leaking them to the press, disseminating and authenticating opposition smears during a political campaign, lying under oath to Congress, obstructing ongoing investigations, using federal funds to purchase ad hominem gossip against a presidential candidate, blatant conflicts of interests, weaponizing federal investigations, trafficking in and leaking classified information . . . The list goes on and on.
The State Department is now involved. Apparently anyone who was a former Clinton smear artist can pass fantasies to a sympathetic or known political appointee at State. And if the "dossier" fits the proper narrative and shared agenda, it gains credence enough to ensure that it is passed up to senior State officials and on to the FBI. Perhaps a private citizen with a grudge against a rival should try that as well.
But then what? In some sense, we are in uncharted territory ‐ given the misadventure of appointing Robert Mueller as special counsel. His team is now replaying the role of Patrick Fitzgerald in the Scooter Libby case: investigating a crime that did not exist and that even if it did was committed by someone else. The Mueller team’s likely parachute will have little if anything to do with the Russian collusion that it originally and chiefly was appointed to investigate. Instead, it’s likely to settle for perjury and obstruction charges against peripheral Trump officials (if the cases are not thrown out by possible reliance on tainted FISA transcripts).
[Real Clear Politics] Former CIA director John Brennan is having trouble keeping his Trump-Russia stories straight. On Meet the Press this past Sunday, host Chuck Todd asked MSNBC’s new national security analyst about George Papadopoulos, a volunteer adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and his reputed ties to Russia.
Skipping down para 4 and the British GCHQ role:
Todd asked Brennan if the intelligence on Papadopoulos came "through the C.I.A. via the Five Eyes thing," referring to the intelligence-sharing relationship between the five English-speaking powers, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Brennan’s response, though, went off-script.
He wasn’t "going to get into details about how it was acquired," he explained. "But the F.B.I. has a very close relationship with its British counterparts. And so the F.B.I. had visibility into a number of things that were going on involving some individuals who may have had some affiliation with the Trump campaign."
British counterparts? The Times report, based on interviews with former and current U.S. and foreign officials, had claimed that the Australians passed on the tip. Did the Times get that part of its story wrong? Perhaps Downer, Australia’s former foreign minister, had told British police who passed it to the FBI. Or maybe Brennan misspoke, or misremembered.
What seems more likely is that the former CIA director told the truth. Informed sources in Washington have been whispering for months that Britain’s intelligence service, the Government Communications Headquarters, the U.K.’s version of America’s National Security Agency, was intercepting the emails and phone calls of Trump officials. "It’s not impossible," a former high-ranking U.S. intelligence officer told me, "that the information came from the Brits. Under certain circumstances, we can search their database, and they can search ours. Our intelligence-sharing relationship with the U.K. is much closer than it is with anyone else, by far the closest we have. But something like that wouldn’t be routine in our relationship."
Luke Harding of the Guardian, apparently one of the few journalists with access to Steele, first reported April 13 that the GCHQ had played a central part in uncovering Trump’s possible ties to Russia, and forwarding the information they had directly on to John Brennan. The next day CNN published a similar report.
Citing U.S. and U.K. intelligence sources, Harding wrote, "GCHQ played an early, prominent role in kickstarting the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, which began in late July 2016." According to one account, reported Harding, "GCHQ’s then-head, Robert Hannigan, passed material in summer 2016 to the CIA chief, John Brennan. The matter was deemed so sensitive it was handled at ’director level.’ After an initially slow start, Brennan used GCHQ information and intelligence from other partners to launch a major inter-agency investigation." Brennan knows the noose is tightening. This is little more than a 'damage control' kabuki dance.
#1
He (Brennan) wasn’t "going to get into details about how it was acquired," he explained.
Of course he wasn't going to share the details, he was the architect of the "details." He couldn't trust the NSA and Admiral Rogers to go along, so he outsourced the surveillance.
Intelligence sharing at these levels is not conducted in an adhoc, 'oh by the way' manner. It is accomplished through coordinated taskings.
Christopher Steele, a former senior employee of British Airways? No, I believe he worked for someone else. James Comey "targeted"? I doubt it. Helpful accomplice I suspect. They were after all, reporting to the same master.
#2
Clapper and Brennan went to CROWDSOURCE to create the fake documents that they used to support the false narrative that it was a Russian hack that took the DNC emails to try and cover for Seth Rich's copying of those same emails directly from the server room.
Since they both knew that Seith Rich was the real source that makes them complicit in his murder. Why else would they try to cover up the evidence?
Phase three in action.
Posted by: C. the Imp. ||
02/13/2018 6:28 Comments ||
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#3
I'll go one further; I doubt we'll ever hear from or see Christopher Steele again.
#8
I'm really not surprised that a bunch of credentialed back slapping oxbridge types (GCHQ) in an opaque bureaucracy manage to continuously churn out such drivel.
#10
And WikiLeaks did publish a bunch of CIA hacking tools that showed that the CIA could hack a computer and make it look like someone else did it...so why does anyone think it was the Russians that hacked Shillary's email and Podesta's email?
What was there to learn about the inner sleaziness of the Clinton campaign that would interest the Russians? Answer nothing. Real question: Who shot Seth Rich?
[BeyondSocratesKnee] For instance, the appearance of Glitnir as the name of the bank that the FL Group created in Iceland to obscure their empty, worthless asset trading in order to create fake equity to borrow against and raid the Western Banking system of real capital. FL Group was technically an Icelandic organization. It just happened to be taken over by Putin's Family and Friends Fund. After which it had created Glitnir and went raiding.
[CNSNews.com] - The federal government this January ran a surplus while collecting record total tax revenues for that month of the year, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today.
January was the first month under the new tax law that President Donald Trump signed in December.
During January, the Treasury collected approximately $361,038,000,000 in total tax revenues and spent a total of approximately $311,802,000,000 to run a surplus of approximately $49,236,000,000.
Despite the monthly surplus of $49,236,000,000, the federal government is still running a deficit of approximately $175,718,000,000 for fiscal year 2018. That is because the government entered the month with a deficit of approximately $224,955,000,000.
#3
If the feds can keep that differential going, it will change the landscape for decades. I will have to look at this more closely, but is $49B per month enough.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
02/13/2018 8:31 Comments ||
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#4
the surplus was about the same in January 2017
the monthly numbers reflex various tax management strategies
April is also a month with frequently a big surplus because people are filing
September also has a frequent surplus because of late filing and estimated payments for the next filing
Posted by: lord garth ||
02/13/2018 9:18 Comments ||
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#5
What lord garth said - April 15th is when the first quarter estimated tax payments are due, followed by June 15th (Q2), Sept. 15th (Q3) and Jan. 15th (Q4). January collections also potentially reflect year-end bonuses to employees.
#6
Thanks people. I was going to ask my bookkeeper, who is absolutely brilliant but she is buried right now. Tax season. She may be 'just' a bookkeeper, but she is far better than I am (4 years of accounting, zero hands on time); I defer to her insight. I keep her up to date on best carry and stuff. It works.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
02/13/2018 13:10 Comments ||
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[Real Clear Politics] I would say, here's my big concern. We are, as we all know, a deeply divided country. We have these partisan fights, they're very rough and tough, this side watches this, the other side watches this, we're not in the same information flow. One thing that could damage this nation terribly is having a national election where the outcome is unclear because we got hacked.
The states is a national election. By the year 2020, right away we should start saying, "You've got to go paper ballots." We'll figure out all this internet magic, technological stuff, but for now, paper ballots in America so Ohio knows how it voted.
#3
If we could keep the elections folks from stashing/destroying paper ballots from districts known to be in opposition to their intended candidate, that would be good too.
The purple thumbs would keep some of the 'traveling voter element' in check, depending on the integrity/diligence of the polling place workers that is.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
02/13/2018 8:13 Comments ||
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#5
Show me a computer system, counter and I guarantee it can be hacked from in or out.
Missing ballot boxes got Lyndon Johnson and Al Franken elected. Burgers as always have some great ideas.
Paper ballots, voter ID and the purple finger would likely remove the DNC from half their major strongholds. Which is exactly why the Dems don't want them.
#8
ACORN showed that paper does not deter corruption. You can outlaw murder, robbery and rape, but unless you ruthlessly enforce penalties, you can't suppress the activity.
The only proven hacking of the election was an attempted entry into the Georgia electronic voting system. The IP address of that attempt was from a computer within DHS. That bit of information should have been followed but after the sycophant Secretary of DHS said it had to be a mistake, it was conveniently dropped.
I wonder how many other state election systems actually reported attempted entries from DHS? Or didn't report because they knew what was going on?
#11
#1 Won't stop the evil Russians from coming right into the polling places. We need positive Voter ID as well. They must be STOPPED ! Posted by: Besoeker
Yep, we need photo ID to keep the Mexican government from interfering in our election process. Mexican nationals are actually encouraged to interfere by our friendly Democrat National Committee and even the former POTUS.
#17
Make it so that after a cut off, no ballot boxes 'found' will be counted. Every ballot should have an inked thumbprint of the voter on it. Voter Fraud is treason and the penalty should be death. NO matter what the level of it.
This thought had occurred to me previously (and is probably not entirely original) but it didn't finally take shape until now. I mocked him yesterday for looking like he was taking a shit in his official presidential portrait. We also remember a picture or two where he extends his middle finger in an otherwise innocuous photograph, and his NCAA picks, and other such behavior when he's not loading up pallets of cash to Iranian terrorists and the like.
We had the epic thread back in 2011 when we (perhaps the best collection of online IQ anywhere) asked 'if you were an enemy of the United States, what would you do differently than what Obama is doing now?'. We were all in agreement - 'not much'.
This most recent picture of Obama on the loo reminded me of that thread, and Obama's assault on our country. Aside from these direct actions, it seems to me he doesn't mind debasing / embarrassing himself in these manners if it serves the purpose of weakening the office of the Presidency, does it?
I offer up this post in order for the Rantburg community to mention other examples of this dynamic. Sadly, I think he still has some shots to fire, as we saw today. Then again, we have Trump to fire back, and then some.
#2
I think we got our first warning about what kind of person he was with Fast and Furious, once the true purpose got out...to disbase the 2nd Amendment, we saw what he was trying to do: turn the US into a socialist dictatorship with a one party system.
#3
IMHO our first warning was his world apology tour, debasing American historical actions in the worst possible light/interpreetations
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2018 11:51 Comments ||
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#4
My late Father-in-Law, active in Illinois Politics from 1970-2010, described Obama in 2004 as "a Marxist".
'Nuf said.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/13/2018 11:53 Comments ||
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#5
On the brighter side by the time the dust settles a number of ideologies will be fairly discredited for a generation or so (at least I hope the millennials can see the difference in the economy and the corruption in the Democrats by the next President election).
#7
Every time he said he wanted to fundamentally change the United States, I always said "into what?"
Perhaps as an intel guy with a specialization in worst case scenarios and having lived out a few of those, maybe I am a bit on the paranoid and conspiracy theorist supreme. HOWEVER, as the bits and pieces are laid out and you get a global view of what was being put into place, all my brain would scream is "Violent overthrow of the US."
Maybe as the FBI, DoJ, and CIA malfeasance to guarantee Shillary's election to continue the "fundamental transformation" comes to light, none of us were really that paranoid. Maybe our stark sense of reality undeluded by the MSM and the cognitive powers of our own brains, we saw this coming.
When the full depth of what was going on during his regime and what they REALLY intended to do gets out into the bright light, it will shock none of us, it will scare the crap out of most of the Facebook crowd.
BLUF:
[Red State] MIC 🎤 DROP: @PressSec On Leaking classified info:
"If you guys have any real concerns about leaking look around this room, you guys are the ones that publish classified information and put our national security at risk"!
Exactly right.
Ultimately the White House gets to choose who works there. Not the FBI. And the sudden concern of the media, in particular the White House press corps, over publishing damaging leaks of national security information is charming in its utter duplicity.
But this is not about Porter. And it isn’t about security clearances. It is about trying to force John Kelly out of his job. All Porter and the security clearances are is a club to beat Kelly and the administration with. Emphasis added.
#5
Guys are heroes when they leak the Pentagon Papers or the intel gathering methods but it is high treason when Assange leaked those damning emails of Shillary and Podesta.
#7
The White House decides who works in the White House. If POSTUS decides he wants to bring in OJ Simpson as his personal adviser and confidant, it's POTUS' call. OJ's clearance will be granted, I assure you. A fact which appears to be lost on many.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[BeyondSocratesKnee] For instance, the appearance of Glitnir as the name of the bank that the FL Group created in Iceland to obscure their empty, worthless asset trading in order to create fake equity to borrow against and raid the Western Banking system of real capital. 
[CNSNews.com] - The federal government this January ran a surplus while collecting record total tax revenues for that month of the year, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today.
Opinion by Raj
