Tag Archives: FBI

Can We Impeach The FBI Now? by Peter Van Buren

Posted on December 13, 2019 | 3 comments

In the title, Peter Van Buren is being too kind. Impeachment as he uses it is just removal from a position. There are numerous FBI officials who would, in a better world, be looking at jail sentences. From Peter Van Buren at theamericanconservative.com:

Read the Horowitz Report. It proves the bureau unleashed an abusive, full-spectrum spying campaign to destroy Trump before and after his election.

Fired FBI director James Comey (Brookings Institution/Flickr)
The release of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report, which shows that the Democrats, media, and FBI lied about not interfering in an election, will be a historian’s marker for how a decent nation fooled itself into self-harm. Forget about foreigners influencing our elections; it was us.

The Horowitz Report is being played by the media for its conclusion: that the FBI’s intel op run against the Trump campaign was not politically motivated and thus “legal.” That covers one page of the 476-page document, but because it fits with the Democratic/mainstream media narrative that Trump is a liar, the rest has been ignored. “The rest,” of course, is a detailed description of America’s domestic intelligence apparatus, aided by its overseas intelligence apparatus, and assisted by its Five Eyes allies’ intelligence apparatuses. And the conclusion is that they unleashed a full-spectrum spying campaign against a presidential candidate in order to influence an election, and when that failed, they tried to delegitimize a president.

Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in Crime, Cronyism, Government, Intelligence, Investigations, Uncategorized

Tagged , ,

The Hidden Hand, by Charles “Sam” Faddis

Posted on December 12, 2019 | 2 comments

The important question in the Russiagate and Ukrainegate scandals is who’s pulling the strings. From Charles “Sam” Faddis at andmagazine.com:

The essence of a coup, which some might refer to as covert action, is the hidden hand.  One does not announce that a foreign power is overthrowing the government and installing a new government.  One pulls strings as if from behind a curtain, making events that are all part of a carefully orchestrated plan appear disconnected, spontaneous and serendipitous.

As I read through the recently released IG report for the second time, as someone with a great deal of experience in military and intelligence matters, I see that hand everywhere.

Per the IG report, a single report is delivered to the FBI in the summer of 2016.  It concerns a meeting between a cooperative contact of a foreign intelligence service and a junior level employee of the Trump campaign, George Papadopoulos.  The report relates what are frankly very amorphous comments by Papadopoulos concerning the Russian government and its alleged possession of information on Hillary Clinton.

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in Crime, Cronyism, Government, Intelligence, Investigations, Law, Politics

Tagged , , , ,

‘Corroboration Zero’: An Inspector General’s Report Reveals the Steele Dossier Was Always a Joke, by Matt Taibbi

Posted on December 11, 2019 | Leave a comment

One of the few honest liberal journalists out there says the Horowitz report confirms that Russiagate was always a fraud. From Matt Taibbi at rollingstone.com:

The report throws water on one “deep state” conspiracy theory of the Russia investigation, but validates complaints about “fake news”

Former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey

Former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The Guardian headline reads: “DOJ Internal watchdog report clears FBI of illegal surveillance of Trump adviser.”

If the report released Monday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz constitutes a “clearing” of the FBI, never clear me of anything. Holy God, what a clown show the Trump-Russia investigation was.

Like the much-ballyhooed report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the Horowitz report is a Rorschach test, in which partisans will find what they want to find.

Much of the press is concentrating on Horowitz’s conclusion that there was no evidence of “political bias or improper motivation” in the FBI’s probe of Donald Trump’s Russia contacts, an investigation Horowitz says the bureau had “authorized purpose” to conduct.

Horowitz uses phrases like “serious performance failures,” describing his 416-page catalogue of errors and manipulations as incompetence rather than corruption. This throws water on the notion that the Trump investigation was a vast frame-up.

Leave a comment

Posted in Crime, Cronyism, Government, Intelligence, Investigations, Law, Media, Politics

Tagged , , ,

Barr Blasts Inspector General for Whitewashing FBI, by Ray McGovern

Posted on December 11, 2019 | Leave a comment

Inspector General Horowitz has admitted that the FBI should have stopped its investigation as new evidence came to light, but Attorney General Barr believes there was no grounds even to start the investigation. From Ray McGovern at antiwar.com:

Barr took unusually strong public issue with Horowitz’s conclusion that there was adequate reason to mount an FBI investigation of the Trump campaign and suspected ties to Russia

Attorney General William Barr on Monday disparaged the long-awaited findings of the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz into FBI conduct in the investigation of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. Barr, in effect, accused Horowitz of whitewashing a litany of proven misfeasance and malfeasance that created the “predicate,” or legal justification, for investigating candidate-and-then-president Donald Trump on suspicion of being in cahoots with the Russians.

In grammatical terms, there can be no sentence, so to speak, without a predicate. Trump was clearly the object of the sentence, and the sleuths led by then-FBI Director James Comey were the subjects in desperate search of a predicate. Horowitz candidly depicted the predicate the FBI requires for a counterintelligence investigation as having to meet a very low bar. The public criticism from his boss was unusual. For the tenacious attorney general, doing a serious investigation of how the FBI handled the Trump-Russia inquiry has become a case of no-holds-Barr-ed, one might say.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Crime, Government, Intelligence, Investigations, Law, Politics

Tagged , , ,

Horowitz Report Is “Triumph” For FISA Abuse ‘Whistleblower’ Devin Nunes: WSJ’s Kim Strassel, by Tyler Durden

Posted on December 11, 2019 | 1 comment

In February 2018 Representative Devin Nunes wrote a memo alleging the FBI abuse the FISA process and the FISA court, for which he received heaps of scorn and condemnation. Turns out he was right. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

In her usual succinct and clarifying manner, The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel took to Twitter overnight to summarize the farcical findings within the Horowitz Report (and Barr and Durham’s responses).

In sixteen short tweets, Strassel destroyed the spin while elucidating the key findings of the Horowitz report (emphasis ours):

Yup, IG said FBI hit threshold for opening an investigation. But also goes out of its way to note what a “low threshold” this is.

Durham’s statement made clear he will provide more info for Americans to make a judgment on reasonableness.

The report is triumph for former House Intel Chair Devin Nunes, who first blew the whistle on FISA abuse. The report confirms all the elements of the February 2018 Nunes memo, which said dossier was as an “essential” part of applications, and FBI withheld info from FISA court

Conversely, the report is an excoriation of Adam Schiff and his “memo” of Feb 2018.

That doc stated that “FBI and DOJ officials did NOT abuse the [FISA] process” or “omit material information.”

Also claimed FBI didn’t much rely on dossier.

Continue reading→

 

1 Comment

Posted in Crime, Cronyism, Government, Intelligence, Investigations, Politics

Tagged , ,

Horowitz: FBI Should Have Pumped The Brakes On Surveillance Of Trump Campaign Aide, by Tyler Durden

Posted on December 11, 2019 | 1 comment

SLL had expected a whitewash from Horowitz, but his report and Senate testimony were far less favorable to the FBI than we expected. Now let’s see if anyone is brought to account. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Update: IG Horowitz told Congressional investigators on Wednesday that FBI officials should have seriously reconsidered their surveillance efforts on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page in early 2017, when information they gathered cast significant doubt on their legal justification to surveil him, according to Bloomberg.

Horowitz also said that the FBI misled the FISA court in order to keep spying on Page.

“I don’t think the Department of Justice fairly treated these FISAs, and he was on the receiving end of them,” he said.

At one point Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) asks, “A lawyer at the FBI creates fraudulent evidence, alters an email that is in turn used as the basis for a sworn statement to the court that the court relies on. Am I stating that accurately?” to which Horowitz responds: “That’s correct. That’s what occurred.”

Continue reading→

 

1 Comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Crime, Cronyism, Government, Intelligence, Investigations, Politics

Tagged , , ,

The Comey FBI’s 17 worst failures, inaccuracies and omissions flagged in the Russia FISA report, by John Solomon

Posted on December 10, 2019 | 2 comments

John Solomon flagged most of the FBI’s failures long before Inspector General Horowitz’s report was released. From Solomon at johnsolomonreports.com:

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz identified 17 serious omissions, inaccuracies and failures involving the FBI’s conduct in the Russia collusion investigation and its pursuit of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant targeting the Trump campaign.

The significant failings are laid bare in a report made public Monday that showed the FBI withheld from the FISA court misgivings about its star informant Christopher Steele, as well as evidence of innocence against targets like former Trump campaign advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.

Here is the list of the 17 flagged failures in the FBI’s handling of FISA warrants in 2016 and 2017, as described in Horowitz’s own words.

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in Crime, Cronyism, Government, Intelligence, Investigations, Law, Politics

Tagged ,

The 10 most important revelations to expect from the Russia probe FISA report, by John Solomon

Posted on December 5, 2019 | Leave a comment

Department of Justice Inspector General Horowitz’s report on Russiagate will be released Monday. Here’s what it should contain, from John Solomon at johnsolomonreports.com:

Next week Americans will finally get their most complete accounting to date of what the FBI did right and wrong in the Russia collusion investigation that probed President Trump’s campaign with a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant at the end of the 2016 election.

Predicted to span more than 500 pages and 100 witness interviews, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report Monday will provide a comprehensive catalog of what offenses, mistakes and oversights the FBI committed during one of the most politically polarizing investigations in recent history.

As such, it will serve as a non-partisan roadmap for a much longer process of holding the investigators to account, a process that now includes a criminal probe being led by U.S. Attorney John Durham and investigative hearings by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham.

In the evitable political bitterness that grips Washington, each political party will seek to score points by cherry-picking their favorite Horowitz findings. But there is a far weightier question than electoral politics to be resolved: Can the FBI be trusted going forward to adequately, fairly and honestly protect civil liberties of Americans while conducting counterintelligence, counterterrorism and criminal investigations.

With that bigger question in mind, here are the 10 revelations I believe will be most important in the Horowitz report.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Crime, Cronyism, Government, Intelligence, Investigations, Politics

Tagged , , ,

FBI Diagnosed With CIA Disease, by Angelo Codevilla

Posted on December 2, 2019 | Leave a comment

How the FBI became the monster it is today. From Angelo Codevilla at amgreatness.com:

An inspector general’s report underscores how the FBI departed from its tradition of professionalism and honesty in pursuit of domestic political influence.

The Justice Department’s inspector general this month reprimanded the FBI for the manner in which it recruits and supervises its “confidential human sources.” To the layman, this seems about technicalities. In fact, it shows that one of the CIA’s deadliest dysfunctions now infects the FBI as well.

This disease consists of choosing and rejecting sources for the purpose of indulging the agencies’ and their leaders’ private agendas rather than to further intelligence work on the public’s behalf.

Necessarily, the language of the inspector general’s November 19 report is vague: “Ineffective management and oversight of confidential sources.” This means the FBI has failed to use “adequate controls” in its validation of human sources, which has resulted in “jeopardizing FBI operations, and placing FBI agents, sources, subjects of investigation, and the public in harm’s way.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Cronyism, Government, Intelligence, Investigations, Law, Politics

Tagged , ,

DOJ Watchdog Expected To Downgrade ‘Spying’ On Trump Campaign To ‘Typical Law Enforcement Activities’, by Tyler Durden

Posted on November 29, 2019 | Leave a comment

Is the fix in on the pending report from Inspector General Michael Horowitz? Don’t be too surprised if it is. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

In late September, RealClearInvestigations‘ Paul Sperry suggested that Inspector General Michael Horowitz – tasked with investigating and exposing wrongdoing at the highest levels – was feared to be pulling punches in order to protect establishment darlings in his upcoming report on the Russia investigation.

Now we learn that Horowitz, who volunteered on several Democratic political campaigns while in college and is married to a former liberal political activist, Obama donor and CNN employee, is expected to conclude that the FBI didn’t spy on the Trump campaign.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Crime, Cronyism, Government, Investigations, Politics

Tagged ,