Category: Drain The Swamp

Nothing Suspicious Here

Drain The Swamp 9 Comments

RCI;

On the night before the Senate impeachment trial began, someone broke into veteran Washington investigative journalist John Solomon’s car, which was parked near the White House, and stole his laptop, according to a D.C. Metropolitan Police Department report obtained by RealClearInvestigations.
 
The computer contained notes on Ukraine and former Vice President Joe Biden and other sensitive information, Solomon said in an interview. He said he was preparing to launch a new podcast and news site at the time.
 
Though the laptop has since been recovered, the investigation is still open. “The case has been assigned a detective and is under investigation,” MPD spokesman Sean Hickman told RCI.
 
The Secret Service is also involved in the matter, which appears suspicious. Break-ins are rare in the high-security area where the crime occurred, just outside the White House perimeter, and a sophisticated device appears to have been used to get into the vehicle.

Some interesting speculation here.

When The FBI Does It, That Means That It’s Not Illegal

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Gen.Michael Flynn has withdrawn his guilty plea.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Wednesday denied lying to the FBI during a Jan. 24, 2017, White House meeting, and said he regrets pleading guilty in the special counsel’s probe.
 
“I am innocent of this crime, and I request to withdraw my guilty plea,” Flynn said in a declaration submitted Wednesday in his case.

Read the Flynn Declaration here.

When The FBI Does It, That Means That It’s Not Illegal

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WSJ;

The Justice Department now believes it should have discontinued its secret surveillance of one-time Trump campaign adviser Carter Page far earlier than it did, according to a new court filing unsealed Thursday.
 
The Justice Department made that determination in a December letter to the secret court that oversees surveillance of suspected foreign spies, acknowledging it may have lacked probable cause to continue wiretapping in the last two of the four surveillance applications it sought against Mr. Page.
 
The government began the surveillance in late 2016, after he left the Trump campaign, and continued monitoring him until late 2017—ultimately obtaining a warrant and three subsequent renewals. The last two applications were submitted in April and June of 2017. It now has concluded there was “insufficient predication to establish probable cause” in the last two renewals, which authorized about six months of surveillance on the former adviser.
 
Probable cause is the legal standard to obtain a secret warrant against suspected agents of a foreign power from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret judicial panel that approves such warrants.
 
The Justice Department letter is classified, but is referenced in a new order declassified by the judge that heads the FISA court, James Boasberg, on Thursday. The Justice Department said it would sequester all the material it collected against Mr. Page pending further internal review of the matter.

When The FBI Does It, That Means That It’s Not Illegal

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“Mistakes”

The FBI apologized to the secret court that handles national security investigations for the way it conducted surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser during the 2016 election, according to a court filing made public on Saturday.
 
FBI Director Christopher Wray outlined steps the bureau is taking to ensure it doesn’t make the same mistakes again. He wrote in the filing to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the FBI will tighten procedures governing wiretapping applications to the court, which oversees intelligence gathering under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

 
The FBI response comes after a report last month from the Justice Department inspector general that revealed serious issues with the bureau’s applications to the court to wiretap former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The FBI suspected Page had possible ties to Russia.

 
That report prompted the court to take the highly unusual step of publicly rebuking the FBI and ordering the bureau to revalidate its work.

When The FBI Does It, That Means That It’s Not Illegal

Drain The Swamp 41 Comments

The FBI’s Darkest Hour.

It’s the greatest scandal in U.S. legal history. Most chilling of all is that the current FBI chief, Christopher Wray, recently shrugged-off FBI agents lying to the FISA court. He said of the damning Horowitz report that, in his mind, what was “important that the inspector general found that, in this particular instance, the investigation was opened with appropriate predication and authorization.”
 
If that’s what he believes and thinks is important, then the FBI is truly constitutionally bankrupt. Russia is ruled by an alumnus of the FBI’s Russian counterpart. Our Constitution won’t protect us unless our own cops with guns respect it. After 2016, one wonders whether the FBI looks upon Vladimir Putin with fear—or envy.

I’m perplexed that no one has stolen my post title by now.

Shy Impeachment Syndrome

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When events take a turn for the bizarre — such as Nancy Pelosi’s sudden reluctance to send her impeachment articles to Senate trial — it’s often the signal of an unknown unknown. As predicted some days ago (though I didn’t link it at the time, but did take note) by @TheLastRefuge2;

1) I don’t like gaming stuff out by thinking like this Lawfare crew, but…

2) There is a possibility…

3) This impeachment could be a disposable first step.
Call it impeachment 1.0

4) They use this impeachment to get the judicial authority to penetrate the constitutional firewall.

A pending senate trial gives them an argument in court for their pre-existing cases.
5) The real goal of impeachment 1.0 is the evidence they seek. (1) Mueller 6e material. (2) McGahn as a witness. and (3) the financials/taxes.

And that looks to be bang on.

BREAKING: House Argues in Court Filing Don McGahn Testimony Needed for Impeachment Evidence…

And that’s why Nancy stammers.

She didn’t hatch the plan, isn’t in control of it, and thus hasn’t the knowledge or confidence required to lie convincingly.

When The FBI Does It, That Means That It’s Not Illegal

Drain The Swamp 25 Comments

Daily Caller;

The judge presiding over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) ordered the FBI in a secret court filing earlier in December to identify all cases handled by a former FBI lawyer who allegedly altered an email during the investigation of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
 
Judge Rosemary Collyer ordered the review Dec. 5, several days before the release of a Justice Department inspector general’s (IG) report that found the FBI made “significant inaccuracies” in applications to surveil Page.
 
The report said a now-former FBI lawyer who has been identified as Kevin Clinesmith altered an email from the bureau’s liaison to the CIA in June 2017 to say Page was “not a source” for the agency.

More here on Kevin Clinesmith.

But that’s not the new news. This is: Former NSA Director Mike Rogers Working With John Durham For Several Months…

When The FBI Does It, That Means That It’s Not Illegal

Drain The Swamp 25 Comments

@TheLastRefuge – OK, so here’s a little thread on the specifics hinted in this article.. (Paywalled)

The federal prosecutor scrutinizing the Russia investigation has begun examining the role of the former C.I.A. director John O. Brennan in how the intelligence community assessed Russia’s 2016 election interference, according to three people briefed on the inquiry.
 
John H. Durham, the United States attorney leading the investigation, has requested Mr. Brennan’s emails, call logs and other documents from the C.I.A., according to a person briefed on his inquiry. He wants to learn what Mr. Brennan told other officials, including the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, about his and the C.I.A.’s views of a notorious dossier of assertions about Russia and Trump associates.
 
Mr. Durham’s pursuit of Mr. Brennan’s records is certain to add to accusations that Mr. Trump is using the Justice Department to go after his perceived enemies. The president has long attacked Mr. Brennan as part of his narrative about a so-called deep state cabal of Obama administration officials who tried to sabotage his campaign, and Mr. Trump has held out Mr. Durham’s investigation as a potential avenue for proving those claims.
 
Mr. Durham is also examining whether Mr. Brennan privately contradicted his public comments, including May 2017 testimony to Congress, about both the dossier and about any debate among the intelligence agencies over their conclusions on Russia’s interference, the people said.

Related;

The co-founder of the prominent intelligence community blog, Lawfare, admitted that a recent report from the Justice Department inspector general on FBI FISA abuses for Trump campaign surveillance has destroyed their own credibility.
 
On a Thursday podcast hosted by Stewart Baker, a partner at the Washington office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP, the blog’s founder, Bobby Chesney admitted that the damming report from the DOJ IG documenting FBI abuses and vindicating the infamous Nunes memo on the discredited Steele Dossier alleging Russian collusion has been destructive to his publication’s reputation.

When The FBI Does It, That Means That It’s Not Illegal

Drain The Swamp 49 Comments

More here.

The frequency with which representations made by FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable.

Well, finally.

When The FBI Does It, That Means That It’s Not Illegal

Drain The Swamp 25 Comments

Thread.

IG Report identifies “seven significant inaccuracies and omissions” in FISA warrant application.
 
This is legal speak for – 7 lies.

Full report here.

Sen. Lindsay Graham reacts.

@tracybeanz Thread: Analysis of the IG Report on the Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI’s CrossfirevHurricane Investigation

More:

Durham says: “last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened“. This is important because the difference between the inspector general and the U.S. attorney is that John Durham has interviewed Downer and Mifsud, and Horowitz has not.
 
Therefore for Durham to state the predication was not justified, has to come from his contact with Ambassador Downer or Joseph Mifsud.

When The FBI Does It, That Means That It’s Not Illegal

Drain The Swamp 17 Comments

The Horowitz Report into FISA abuse drops today.

Related: Look everybody! A shiny ball!

Update: The Swamp is deep.

Update #2 Statement from AG Barr;

The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken. It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory.
 
Nevertheless, the investigation and surveillance was pushed forward for the duration of the campaign and deep into President Trump’s administration. In the rush to obtain and maintain FISA surveillance of Trump campaign associates, FBI officials misled the FISA court, omitted critical exculpatory facts from their filings, and suppressed or ignored information negating the reliability of their principal source.
 
The Inspector General found the explanations given for these actions unsatisfactory. While most of the misconduct identified by the Inspector General was committed in 2016 and 2017 by a small group of now-former FBI officials, the malfeasance and misfeasance detailed in the Inspector General’s report reflects a clear abuse of the FISA process.

Well, finally.

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