Politics EXPOSING THE DEEP STATE (1 Viewer)

[Lanny]

Proof that Obama was actively abusing his office to smear the elected President of The United States, just days before leaving office.

What is it, Fox News? How refreshing.
I'm sure that indictments are finally any day now.

 

[MARIS61]

Reluctant witnesses in FISA abuse probe agree to talk to DOJ inspector general

By Catherine Herridge, Cyd Upson | Fox News

Report on Russia probe origins delayed as new evidence prompts deeper review

Sources tell Fox News that Justice Department inspector general is examining a senior State Department official's contact with Christopher Steele, author of the anti-Trump dossier; chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge reports.

Key witnesses sought for questioning by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz early in his investigation into alleged government surveillance abuse have come forward at the 11th hour, Fox News has learned.

Sources familiar with the matter said at least one witness outside the Justice Department and FBI started cooperating -- a breakthrough that came after Attorney General William Barr ordered U.S. Attorney John Durham to lead a separate investigation into the origins of the bureau’s 2016 Russia case that laid the foundation for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz looks on as he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on "Examining the Inspector General's First Report on Justice Department and FBI Actions in Advance of the 2016 Presidential Election" in the Hart Senate Office Building on June 18, 2018, on Capitol Hill. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP/Getty Images)

While the investigative phaseof the inspector general’s long-running probe is said to be complete, the sources said recent developments required some witnesses to be reinterviewed. And while Barr testified that he expected the report into alleged Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse to be ready in May or last month, multiple sources said the timeline has slipped.

"The wheels of inspector general investigations move very, very slowly," former senior DOJ official Tom Dupree told Fox News.

Dupree, who served as deputy assistant attorney general from 2007 to 2009, does not have firsthand knowledge of the current IG case but is familiar with the process. He added, "Like any investigation, you talk to one person, something that person tells you sends you back … to the first person, so it can be a very extensive, exhaustive process, because you are constantly picking up leads, interviewing former sources and navigating complex questions of classified information."

Late-breaking information is known to delay such investigations. Horowitz’s office similarly encountered new evidence late in the process of the IG review into law enforcement decisions during the 2016 Hillary Clinton email investigation. In this case, additional FISA information came to light late in the process – including October 2016 contact (first reported by The Hill and confirmed by Fox News) between a senior State Department official and a former British spy Christopher Steele, who authored the infamous and salacious anti-Trump dossier.

The State Department contact with Steele was relayed to a senior FBI official. The timeline matters because about two weeks later, the FBI and DOJ used Steele's unverified research, paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign, to secure a surveillance warrant against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. At the very least, it's been argued, Steele's contact with another government agency should have been a red flag for the FBI because it may have violated his confidential human source agreement.

Steele was later fired by the FBI over his media contacts before the 2016 presidential election. The Page surveillance warrant is the central issue of the DOJ IG’s review.

With the timeline for Horowitz’s report not public, one of the wild cards is the final review by the FBI and DOJ, which includes classification issues and could take weeks.

A spokesman for Horowitz would not comment on the report's status. But during largely unrelated testimony in November, Horowitz offered some guidance for the timeline of the FISA abuse probe in response to questions from GOP Rep. Jim Jordan.

"What I can say is given the volume of documents we've had and the number of witnesses it looks like we'll need to interview, we are likely to be in the same sort of general range of documents and witnesses as the last report," Horowitz said, referring to his team's review of the Clinton email case. "It wouldn't surprise me if we are in that million or so plus range of documents and a hundred-ish or so interviews. The last review, as you know, took us about … 16 months or so."

If that same guidance holds, the window for completion would begin this month, though it remains unclear how much the DOJ/FBI review and the additional interviews could delay the process.

Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.

 

[Lanny]

Reluctant witnesses in FISA abuse probe agree to talk to DOJ inspector general

By Catherine Herridge, Cyd Upson | Fox News

Report on Russia probe origins delayed as new evidence prompts deeper review

Sources tell Fox News that Justice Department inspector general is examining a senior State Department official's contact with Christopher Steele, author of the anti-Trump dossier; chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge reports.

Key witnesses sought for questioning by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz early in his investigation into alleged government surveillance abuse have come forward at the 11th hour, Fox News has learned.

Sources familiar with the matter said at least one witness outside the Justice Department and FBI started cooperating -- a breakthrough that came after Attorney General William Barr ordered U.S. Attorney John Durham to lead a separate investigation into the origins of the bureau’s 2016 Russia case that laid the foundation for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz looks on as he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on "Examining the Inspector General's First Report on Justice Department and FBI Actions in Advance of the 2016 Presidential Election" in the Hart Senate Office Building on June 18, 2018, on Capitol Hill. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP/Getty Images)

While the investigative phaseof the inspector general’s long-running probe is said to be complete, the sources said recent developments required some witnesses to be reinterviewed. And while Barr testified that he expected the report into alleged Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse to be ready in May or last month, multiple sources said the timeline has slipped.

"The wheels of inspector general investigations move very, very slowly," former senior DOJ official Tom Dupree told Fox News.

Dupree, who served as deputy assistant attorney general from 2007 to 2009, does not have firsthand knowledge of the current IG case but is familiar with the process. He added, "Like any investigation, you talk to one person, something that person tells you sends you back … to the first person, so it can be a very extensive, exhaustive process, because you are constantly picking up leads, interviewing former sources and navigating complex questions of classified information."

Late-breaking information is known to delay such investigations. Horowitz’s office similarly encountered new evidence late in the process of the IG review into law enforcement decisions during the 2016 Hillary Clinton email investigation. In this case, additional FISA information came to light late in the process – including October 2016 contact (first reported by The Hill and confirmed by Fox News) between a senior State Department official and a former British spy Christopher Steele, who authored the infamous and salacious anti-Trump dossier.

The State Department contact with Steele was relayed to a senior FBI official. The timeline matters because about two weeks later, the FBI and DOJ used Steele's unverified research, paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign, to secure a surveillance warrant against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. At the very least, it's been argued, Steele's contact with another government agency should have been a red flag for the FBI because it may have violated his confidential human source agreement.

Steele was later fired by the FBI over his media contacts before the 2016 presidential election. The Page surveillance warrant is the central issue of the DOJ IG’s review.

With the timeline for Horowitz’s report not public, one of the wild cards is the final review by the FBI and DOJ, which includes classification issues and could take weeks.

A spokesman for Horowitz would not comment on the report's status. But during largely unrelated testimony in November, Horowitz offered some guidance for the timeline of the FISA abuse probe in response to questions from GOP Rep. Jim Jordan.

"What I can say is given the volume of documents we've had and the number of witnesses it looks like we'll need to interview, we are likely to be in the same sort of general range of documents and witnesses as the last report," Horowitz said, referring to his team's review of the Clinton email case. "It wouldn't surprise me if we are in that million or so plus range of documents and a hundred-ish or so interviews. The last review, as you know, took us about … 16 months or so."

If that same guidance holds, the window for completion would begin this month, though it remains unclear how much the DOJ/FBI review and the additional interviews could delay the process.

Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.

Is this the same guy that found that Comey was not motivated by any political bias?
Just what prestigious award did Catherine Herridge win?

 

[MARIS61]

Trump declares victory over ‘Deep State’ as court tosses challenge over his businesses
By Ronn Blitzer | Fox News

President Trump scored a big win on Wednesday when the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to throw out a case that accused him of violating the Constitution through earnings from D.C. businesses including the Trump International Hotel.

The lawsuit, brought by the attorneys general of Maryland and Washington, D.C., claimed that earnings from the hotel and its related businesses violated prohibitions against receiving benefits from foreign governments, the U.S., or individual states. The Fourth Circuit declared that Maryland and D.C. lacked standing to bring the case in the first place, and ordered the lower court to dismiss the complaint.

“Word just out that I won a big part of the Deep State and Democrat induced Witch Hunt,” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning. “Unanimous decision in my favor from The United States Court of Appeals For The Fourth Circuit on the ridiculous Emoluments Case. I don’t make money, but lose a fortune for the honor of serving and doing a great job as your President (including accepting Zero salary!).”

The complaint claimed that by maintaining ownership of his businesses, Trump earned “millions of dollars in payments, benefits, and other valuable consideration from foreign governments and persons acting on their behalf, as well as federal agencies and state governments.” The Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution prohibits people holding office from accepting “any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state” without congressional consent.

Similarly, the Domestic Emoluments Clause says that the president “shall not receive … any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them” other than a salary.

The Fourth Circuit ruled that D.C. and Maryland could not properly bring such a case against Trump because they did not establish that they suffered any harm that justified the lawsuit. They claimed that their interest was in protecting local businesses that allegedly lost out on business because officials would patronize Trump’s establishments instead. They also claimed that the Trump International Hotel has an “unlawful competitive advantage” over D.C. properties and that Maryland loses out on tax revenue because business is going to Trump’s D.C. businesses instead.

The Fourth Circuit did not buy these arguments.

“The District and Maryland’s interest in enforcing the Emoluments Clauses is so attenuated and abstract that their prosecution of this case readily provokes the question of whether this action against the President is an appropriate use of the courts, which were created to resolve real cases and controversies between the parties,” the court’s opinion said, noting that the “alleged harm amounts to little more than a general interest in having the law followed,” which is not enough to constitute an actual case or controversy to be heard by the courts.

"We are pleased that the Fourth Circuit unanimously decided to dismiss this extraordinarily flawed case," Justice Department spokesperson Kelly Laco said in a statement. "The court correctly determined that the plaintiffs improperly asked the courts to exceed their constitutional role by reviewing the President’s compliance with the Emoluments Clauses.”

Trump’s personal attorney Jay Sekulow celebrated the outcome as “a complete victory.”

“The decision states that there was no legal standing to bring this lawsuit in the first place,” Sekulow said in a statement. “This latest effort at Presidential harassment has been dismissed with.”

According to Bloomberg, the profits the Trump Organization as a whole earned from foreign countries and officials over the past year amounted to $191,538, an increase of 26 percent from the year before. The Organization, the operation of which Trump left to his children when he took office, donated that same amount to the U.S. Treasury to avoid Emoluments Clause concerns.

On Monday, the Justice Department filed a challenge in a separate Emoluments Clause case with the D.C. Court of Appeals. That case, brought by congressional Democrats, involved Trump properties including hotels in New York and D.C., as well as Mar-a-Lago in Florida. The DOJ's filing seeks the dismissal of the case, or at least a halt to the discovery process that would involve turning over various business records.

Fox News' Bill Mears and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

[UncleCliffy'sDaddy]

Trump declares victory over ‘Deep State’ as court tosses challenge over his businesses
By Ronn Blitzer | Fox News

President Trump scored a big win on Wednesday when the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to throw out a case that accused him of violating the Constitution through earnings from D.C. businesses including the Trump International Hotel.

The lawsuit, brought by the attorneys general of Maryland and Washington, D.C., claimed that earnings from the hotel and its related businesses violated prohibitions against receiving benefits from foreign governments, the U.S., or individual states. The Fourth Circuit declared that Maryland and D.C. lacked standing to bring the case in the first place, and ordered the lower court to dismiss the complaint.

“Word just out that I won a big part of the Deep State and Democrat induced Witch Hunt,” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning. “Unanimous decision in my favor from The United States Court of Appeals For The Fourth Circuit on the ridiculous Emoluments Case. I don’t make money, but lose a fortune for the honor of serving and doing a great job as your President (including accepting Zero salary!).”

The complaint claimed that by maintaining ownership of his businesses, Trump earned “millions of dollars in payments, benefits, and other valuable consideration from foreign governments and persons acting on their behalf, as well as federal agencies and state governments.” The Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution prohibits people holding office from accepting “any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state” without congressional consent.

Similarly, the Domestic Emoluments Clause says that the president “shall not receive … any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them” other than a salary.

The Fourth Circuit ruled that D.C. and Maryland could not properly bring such a case against Trump because they did not establish that they suffered any harm that justified the lawsuit. They claimed that their interest was in protecting local businesses that allegedly lost out on business because officials would patronize Trump’s establishments instead. They also claimed that the Trump International Hotel has an “unlawful competitive advantage” over D.C. properties and that Maryland loses out on tax revenue because business is going to Trump’s D.C. businesses instead.

The Fourth Circuit did not buy these arguments.

“The District and Maryland’s interest in enforcing the Emoluments Clauses is so attenuated and abstract that their prosecution of this case readily provokes the question of whether this action against the President is an appropriate use of the courts, which were created to resolve real cases and controversies between the parties,” the court’s opinion said, noting that the “alleged harm amounts to little more than a general interest in having the law followed,” which is not enough to constitute an actual case or controversy to be heard by the courts.

"We are pleased that the Fourth Circuit unanimously decided to dismiss this extraordinarily flawed case," Justice Department spokesperson Kelly Laco said in a statement. "The court correctly determined that the plaintiffs improperly asked the courts to exceed their constitutional role by reviewing the President’s compliance with the Emoluments Clauses.”

Trump’s personal attorney Jay Sekulow celebrated the outcome as “a complete victory.”

“The decision states that there was no legal standing to bring this lawsuit in the first place,” Sekulow said in a statement. “This latest effort at Presidential harassment has been dismissed with.”

According to Bloomberg, the profits the Trump Organization as a whole earned from foreign countries and officials over the past year amounted to $191,538, an increase of 26 percent from the year before. The Organization, the operation of which Trump left to his children when he took office, donated that same amount to the U.S. Treasury to avoid Emoluments Clause concerns.

On Monday, the Justice Department filed a challenge in a separate Emoluments Clause case with the D.C. Court of Appeals. That case, brought by congressional Democrats, involved Trump properties including hotels in New York and D.C., as well as Mar-a-Lago in Florida. The DOJ's filing seeks the dismissal of the case, or at least a halt to the discovery process that would involve turning over various business records.

Fox News' Bill Mears and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Seems to me this is actually a huge win for the “deep state”. It’s concrete proof that “justice” and fair play go to the highest bidders. And that if you have money the rules that apply to everyone else don’t apply to you. It’s beyond me why some folks ignore the obvious truth that Trump is a dues paying member in good standing of the “deep state”......watch what I’m doing with this hand while I rob you blind with the other.......2020 can’t come fast enough.

 

[Lanny]

Trump declares victory over ‘Deep State’ as court tosses challenge over his businesses
By Ronn Blitzer | Fox News

President Trump scored a big win on Wednesday when the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to throw out a case that accused him of violating the Constitution through earnings from D.C. businesses including the Trump International Hotel.

The lawsuit, brought by the attorneys general of Maryland and Washington, D.C., claimed that earnings from the hotel and its related businesses violated prohibitions against receiving benefits from foreign governments, the U.S., or individual states. The Fourth Circuit declared that Maryland and D.C. lacked standing to bring the case in the first place, and ordered the lower court to dismiss the complaint.

“Word just out that I won a big part of the Deep State and Democrat induced Witch Hunt,” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning. “Unanimous decision in my favor from The United States Court of Appeals For The Fourth Circuit on the ridiculous Emoluments Case. I don’t make money, but lose a fortune for the honor of serving and doing a great job as your President (including accepting Zero salary!).”

The complaint claimed that by maintaining ownership of his businesses, Trump earned “millions of dollars in payments, benefits, and other valuable consideration from foreign governments and persons acting on their behalf, as well as federal agencies and state governments.” The Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution prohibits people holding office from accepting “any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state” without congressional consent.

Similarly, the Domestic Emoluments Clause says that the president “shall not receive … any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them” other than a salary.

The Fourth Circuit ruled that D.C. and Maryland could not properly bring such a case against Trump because they did not establish that they suffered any harm that justified the lawsuit. They claimed that their interest was in protecting local businesses that allegedly lost out on business because officials would patronize Trump’s establishments instead. They also claimed that the Trump International Hotel has an “unlawful competitive advantage” over D.C. properties and that Maryland loses out on tax revenue because business is going to Trump’s D.C. businesses instead.

The Fourth Circuit did not buy these arguments.

“The District and Maryland’s interest in enforcing the Emoluments Clauses is so attenuated and abstract that their prosecution of this case readily provokes the question of whether this action against the President is an appropriate use of the courts, which were created to resolve real cases and controversies between the parties,” the court’s opinion said, noting that the “alleged harm amounts to little more than a general interest in having the law followed,” which is not enough to constitute an actual case or controversy to be heard by the courts.

"We are pleased that the Fourth Circuit unanimously decided to dismiss this extraordinarily flawed case," Justice Department spokesperson Kelly Laco said in a statement. "The court correctly determined that the plaintiffs improperly asked the courts to exceed their constitutional role by reviewing the President’s compliance with the Emoluments Clauses.”

Trump’s personal attorney Jay Sekulow celebrated the outcome as “a complete victory.”

“The decision states that there was no legal standing to bring this lawsuit in the first place,” Sekulow said in a statement. “This latest effort at Presidential harassment has been dismissed with.”

According to Bloomberg, the profits the Trump Organization as a whole earned from foreign countries and officials over the past year amounted to $191,538, an increase of 26 percent from the year before. The Organization, the operation of which Trump left to his children when he took office, donated that same amount to the U.S. Treasury to avoid Emoluments Clause concerns.

On Monday, the Justice Department filed a challenge in a separate Emoluments Clause case with the D.C. Court of Appeals. That case, brought by congressional Democrats, involved Trump properties including hotels in New York and D.C., as well as Mar-a-Lago in Florida. The DOJ's filing seeks the dismissal of the case, or at least a halt to the discovery process that would involve turning over various business records.

Fox News' Bill Mears and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The votes from the Trump appointees won the day. This is certainly no surprise.

 

[MARIS61]

Judicial Watch: Emails Show Dossier-Connected Top Obama State Department Officials Set ‘Face-to-Face’ Meeting on ‘Russian Matter’ in NY in September 2016
JULY 18, 2019

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch and The Daily Caller News Foundation today released 84 pages of documents, including a September 2016 email exchange between then-Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Special Coordinator for Libya Jonathan Winer, a close associate of dossier author Christopher Steele, discussing a “face-to-face” meeting on a “Russian matter.”

(In June 2016 Nuland permitted a meeting between Steele and the FBI’s legal attaché in Rome. Nuland told CBS News that the State Department knew about the Steele dossier by July 2016.)

According to an op-ed Winer wrote for The Washington Post in 2018, also in September 2016, “Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the “dossier… I prepared a two-page summary and shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material.”

The documents obtained by Judicial Watch also show that State Department officials continued to use unsecure BlackBerry devices for the transmission of classified material more than a year after Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecure, non-government email system was revealed.

Judicial Watch obtained the documents in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on April 25, 2018, on behalf of itself and the Daily Caller News Foundation against the State Department after it failed to respond to three separate FOIA requests (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:18-cv- 00968)). The lawsuit seeks:

• All records of communications between State Department officials, including former Secretary of State John Kerry, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, on the one hand, and British National Christopher Steele and/or employees or contractors of Steele’s company, Orbis Business Intelligence, on the other hand.

• All records and/or memoranda provided by Christopher Steele and/or his firm Orbis Business Intelligence or by others acting on Steele’s/Orbis’s behalf, to State Department officials.

• Any and all records in the custody of the State Department related to the provision of documents to British national Christopher Steele and/or his firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, or the receipt of documents from Steele or his firm. Time period is January 20, 2009 through the present.

• All records created in 2016 by Jonathan M. Winer relating to research compiled by Christopher Steele.

A September 17, 2016, email exchange between Nuland and Winer – that was classified in the interest of national defense or foreign policy – discusses the political situation in Libya, but also brings up a “Russian matter:”

From: Winer, Jonathan
Sent: September 17, 2016 at 12:40:00 PM EDT
To: Nuland, Victoria J
Subject: Re: Libya Update

Would like to discuss this and a Russian matter.

From: Nuland, Victoria J
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 1:31 PM
To: Winer, Jonathan
Subject: Re. Libya Update

In ny face to face?

From: Winer, Jonathan
Sent: September 17, 2016 at 1:56:05 PM EDT
To: Nuland, Victoria J
Subject: Re: Libya Update

Yes that was [sic] be good.

From: Nuland, Victoria J
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 1:58 PM
To: Winer, Jonathan
Subject: Re. Libya Update

Good. I’ll reach out when im there Sunday. [Redacted]

Other emails show senior State Department personnel using unsecure BlackBerrys to transmit classified information even after the Clinton email scandal became public.

“The Obama State Department was central to the effort to target President Trump with the Russia smear,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “These new emails further show that senior Obama State Department advanced the Russiagate hoax just before the 2016 presidential election.”

Judicial Watch recently released 16 pages of documents revealing that Nuland and Winer coordinated with then-House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer’s (D-MD) national security advisor Daniel Silverberg to work on Russia dossier materials provided by Christopher Steele.

In December 2018, Judicial Watch released documents revealing that Nuland was involved in the Obama State Department’s urgent gathering of classified Russia investigation information and disseminating it to members of Congress within hours of Donald Trump taking office.

In a related lawsuit, Judicial Watch is suing the State Department communications between Ambassador Nuland and employees of Fusion GPS, as well as top ranking Department of Justice, FBI, and State Department officials.

Judicial Watch recently released 41 pages of documents from the State Department revealing that Winer, played a key role in facilitating Steele’s access to other top government officials, prominent international business executives. Winer was even approached by a movie producer about making a movie about the Russiagate targeting of President Trump.

Winer was implicated in working with Steele and Clinton associate Sidney Blumenthal to circulate the anti-Trump dossier.

 

[Lanny]

Judicial Watch: Emails Show Dossier-Connected Top Obama State Department Officials Set ‘Face-to-Face’ Meeting on ‘Russian Matter’ in NY in September 2016
JULY 18, 2019

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch and The Daily Caller News Foundation today released 84 pages of documents, including a September 2016 email exchange between then-Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Special Coordinator for Libya Jonathan Winer, a close associate of dossier author Christopher Steele, discussing a “face-to-face” meeting on a “Russian matter.”

(In June 2016 Nuland permitted a meeting between Steele and the FBI’s legal attaché in Rome. Nuland told CBS News that the State Department knew about the Steele dossier by July 2016.)

According to an op-ed Winer wrote for The Washington Post in 2018, also in September 2016, “Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the “dossier… I prepared a two-page summary and shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material.”

The documents obtained by Judicial Watch also show that State Department officials continued to use unsecure BlackBerry devices for the transmission of classified material more than a year after Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecure, non-government email system was revealed.

Judicial Watch obtained the documents in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on April 25, 2018, on behalf of itself and the Daily Caller News Foundation against the State Department after it failed to respond to three separate FOIA requests (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:18-cv- 00968)). The lawsuit seeks:

• All records of communications between State Department officials, including former Secretary of State John Kerry, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, on the one hand, and British National Christopher Steele and/or employees or contractors of Steele’s company, Orbis Business Intelligence, on the other hand.

• All records and/or memoranda provided by Christopher Steele and/or his firm Orbis Business Intelligence or by others acting on Steele’s/Orbis’s behalf, to State Department officials.

• Any and all records in the custody of the State Department related to the provision of documents to British national Christopher Steele and/or his firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, or the receipt of documents from Steele or his firm. Time period is January 20, 2009 through the present.

• All records created in 2016 by Jonathan M. Winer relating to research compiled by Christopher Steele.

A September 17, 2016, email exchange between Nuland and Winer – that was classified in the interest of national defense or foreign policy – discusses the political situation in Libya, but also brings up a “Russian matter:”

From: Winer, Jonathan
Sent: September 17, 2016 at 12:40:00 PM EDT
To: Nuland, Victoria J
Subject: Re: Libya Update

Would like to discuss this and a Russian matter.

From: Nuland, Victoria J
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 1:31 PM
To: Winer, Jonathan
Subject: Re. Libya Update

In ny face to face?

From: Winer, Jonathan
Sent: September 17, 2016 at 1:56:05 PM EDT
To: Nuland, Victoria J
Subject: Re: Libya Update

Yes that was [sic] be good.

From: Nuland, Victoria J
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 1:58 PM
To: Winer, Jonathan
Subject: Re. Libya Update

Good. I’ll reach out when im there Sunday. [Redacted]

Other emails show senior State Department personnel using unsecure BlackBerrys to transmit classified information even after the Clinton email scandal became public.

“The Obama State Department was central to the effort to target President Trump with the Russia smear,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “These new emails further show that senior Obama State Department advanced the Russiagate hoax just before the 2016 presidential election.”

Judicial Watch recently released 16 pages of documents revealing that Nuland and Winer coordinated with then-House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer’s (D-MD) national security advisor Daniel Silverberg to work on Russia dossier materials provided by Christopher Steele.

In December 2018, Judicial Watch released documents revealing that Nuland was involved in the Obama State Department’s urgent gathering of classified Russia investigation information and disseminating it to members of Congress within hours of Donald Trump taking office.

In a related lawsuit, Judicial Watch is suing the State Department communications between Ambassador Nuland and employees of Fusion GPS, as well as top ranking Department of Justice, FBI, and State Department officials.

Judicial Watch recently released 41 pages of documents from the State Department revealing that Winer, played a key role in facilitating Steele’s access to other top government officials, prominent international business executives. Winer was even approached by a movie producer about making a movie about the Russiagate targeting of President Trump.

Winer was implicated in working with Steele and Clinton associate Sidney Blumenthal to circulate the anti-Trump dossier.

More indictments will happen any day now.

 

[MARIS61]

Comey's inside man at White House emerges as DOJ inspector general finalizes FISA abuse report
by Daniel Chaitin
& Jerry Dunleavy
| July 22, 2019 10:01 PM

Former FBI Director James Comey had an inside man at the White House, feeding the bureau information about President Trump and his aides in 2017.

Now this individual, who after leaving the government was hired by BuzzFeed to verify parts of British ex-spy Christopher Steele's dossier, may be tied to an investigation into alleged surveillance abuses by the DOJ and the FBI being conducted by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

This previously unreported mole in the White House appears in a new report by RealClearInvestigations that explored possible misconduct by Comey for what two U.S. officials described as essentially "running a covert operation against" the president even as he was assuring Trump he was not the subject of any investigation.

Anthony Ferrante, a longtime FBI official, worked as a cybersecurity adviser on the National Security Council. Officials said Ferrante was working in the White House even while the FBI held him on reserve status. All the while, he was sharing information about Trump and his aides back to FBI headquarters.

One former National Security Council official said Ferrante's unique position was highly irregular.

“In an unprecedented action, Comey created a new FBI reserve position for Ferrante, enabling him to have an ongoing relationship with the agency, retaining his clearances and enabling him to come back in [to bureau headquarters],” the official said, adding that the NSC division supervisor was "not allowed to get rid of Ferrante" and that the arrangement appeared to be "in direct conflict with the no-contact policy between the White House and the Department of Justice."

Ferrante left the White House in April 2017, not long before Trump fired Comey as FBI director.

He went on to join FTI Consulting, a business-advising firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. Through this firm, Ferrante was hired by BuzzFeed to investigate the dossier composed by Steele, to try and corroborate the unverified claims about Trump's ties to Russia that appear in the research.

Ferrante was replaced in the White House by another FBI official, Jordan Rae Kelly, who signed security logs for Ferrante to enter the White House while he was contracted by BuzzFeed. Kelly left the White House last year and also joined FTI Consulting.

The FBI declined to comment for this report.

The dossier was published by BuzzFeed in January 2017 after reports came out that Comey privately briefed then-President-elect Trump on select allegations from Steele's work at a Trump Tower briefing. This meeting in New York, which came one day after Comey met with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office with some of his top administration officials, is now under scrutiny by Horowitz's team.

In what has become an urgent area of consternation for Republican lawmakers, the FBI relied heavily on Steele's unverified dossier to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants filed to surveil onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Four FISA warrant applications and renewals were filed from October 2016 through June 2017 against Page. Steele was hired by opposition research firm Fusion GPS and his dossier was funded by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign.

While under contract for BuzzFeed, Ferrante compiled a report that was filed in federal court as part of a lawsuit over the publication of the dossier. He found that internet service providers mentioned in the dossier that were owned by Russian entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev may have been used by Russian agents to support the hack of the DNC and the campaign chairman of Clinton’s campaign during the 2016 election. Unlike Steele's dossier, Ferrante's report did not directly link Gubarev or his executives to the hacking. “I have no evidence of them actually sitting behind a keyboard,” Ferrante said in a deposition.

It is unclear whether Ferrante is still working for BuzzFeed. A spokesman for the outlet declined to comment on questions from the Washington Examiner about Ferrante. Ferrante did not immediately return an emailed request for comment from the Washington Examiner and a spokeswoman at FTI Consulting declined comment to RealClearInvestigations, as did Comey's attorney.

Horowitz's team has reviewed more than 1 million records and conducted more than 100 interviews, including with Comey and Steele. The information provided by Steele was reportedly interesting or credible enough to justify extending the length of the investigation, which Attorney General William Barr earlier this year had predicted would be complete by May or June.

House Judiciary Committee ranking member Doug Collins said over the weekend he expects the inspector general's report to be released this fall. The RealClearInvestigations report puts a release date sometime in September.

Meanwhile Attorney General William Barr is conducting a review of the origins of the Russia investigation, and he has said he is working very closely with Horowitz. The inspector general can recommend prosecutions, and U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Barr tasked to lead the review, has the ability to convene a grand jury and to subpoena people outside of the government.

 

[MARIS61]

Congress Should Stop Wasting Time On Mueller — And Investigate Hillary Clinton’s Role In Steel Dossier
Tom Fitton President, Judicial Watch

Congressional Democrats will finally get an opportunity to put on a public show starring former Special Counsel Robert Mueller when he appears before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

Mueller was last seen at his May 29 press statement, in which he attacked President Trump by promoting a tenuous theory of obstruction of justice as grounds for impeachment. Mueller, despite the “no collusion, no obstruction” conclusion of his dubious report, smeared the president by presuming him guilty anyway, claiming he was not exonerated and signaled House Democrats to begin impeachment proceedings.

before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

Mueller was last seen at his May 29 press statement, in which he attacked President Trump by promoting a tenuous theory of obstruction of justice as grounds for impeachment. Mueller, despite the “no collusion, no obstruction” conclusion of his dubious report, smeared the president by presuming him guilty anyway, claiming he was not exonerated and signaled House Democrats to begin impeachment proceedings.

This hearing will give Mueller and the Democrats an opportunity to once again push the “destroy Trump” narrative and jump-start the impeachment process. Mueller’s testimony will be geared to that end. Democratic questions will seek to fill in the blanks to preserve Mueller’s manufactured reputation for probity. And the mainstream media will be primed — and probably pre-briefed — to drive the point home.

However, unlike at his press statement where he allowed no questions, Mueller will now have to face hard scrutiny from Republicans and honest Democrats about the origins of his investigation, misconduct during the process, and his questionable, sometimes completely erroneous conclusions.

For example, why did Mueller sit on the fact that his team had early-on discovered that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, which was the central question of the entire Russiagate hoax? Were the midterm elections a factor in his delay for exonerating President Trump of Russia collusion?

Why did Mueller continue as special counsel after learning that former FBI Director James Comey broke the law to get him appointed by leaking information from President Trump’s FBI files to the New York Times, using a Columbia professor friend of his as a cut-out?

Why did Mueller populate his investigative team almost exclusively with people with obvious political bias against President Trump? What was the role of chief prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who hired many of the conflicted members of the team and who had been spotted at Hillary Clinton’s election night party?

Why did Mueller hide from the American people for four months Peter Strzok and Lisa Page’s outrageous conduct and flagrant anti-Trump bias, which necessitated they be fired from the investigation? And why did his office quietly delete all the text messages they passed while on his team, going so far as to reformat their government-issued phones?

Did Mueller’s office have any contacts with the media, such as leaking information regarding the massive pre-dawn raid on Roger Stone’s home, or the inexplicable guns-drawn action at the home of Paul Manafort?

Why didn’t Mueller investigate the Steele dossier that was the basis for the Russian collusion hoax? Why didn’t Mueller examine contacts between Steele, Fusion GPS employees like Nellie Ohr, and/or members of the Clinton campaign with the sketchy Russian sources who fed the rumors that were the basis of the dossier?

These are important questions since this was the only demonstrable Russian collusion in 2016, as the dossier was the prime vehicle for Russian interference in the election.

Critical questions can also be asked about Mueller’s report to the attorney general, 400 pages of rumor, innuendo and noise that boiled down to “no collusion, no obstruction.” Why did Mueller withhold information from the report that would have tended to make President Trump look good, such as the fact that Carter Page, far from being a Russian colluder, was in fact an FBI informant against Russia?

What does Mueller make of the fact that United States District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich issued an opinion on July 1 that Mueller did not in fact establish a Kremlin connection to the Internet Research Agency, the Russian organization Mueller claimed ran Moscow’s ‘active measures’ social media campaign in 2016?

Democrats, of course, won’t want to ask these hard questions because they are implicated in the scandal. Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff has a history of lying about President Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia and has serious ethics problems over mishandling of classified info and irregular communications with anti-Trump witnesses.

But regardless of what Mueller says or doesn’t say, it is critical to remember that this entire enterprise was illegitimate from the start. We arrived here largely because of one person — Hillary Clinton. The Clinton campaign paid for a smear operation against Donald Trump using Russian rumors filtered through Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS, and a dossier laundered through the Obama Justice Department and FBI to create a bogus psy-operation that ultimately led to the special counsel. Without Hillary Clinton, and the need to minimize the damage from her email scandal, there would have been no dossier, no FISA spy warrants, no collusion hoax, no special counsel, no coup cabal, no threats of impeachment, and no continued partisan harassment from Congress.

This is rooted in a Clinton campaign operation seeking to create a false narrative that the Russians were conspiring with Donald Trump to rig the 2016 election. But she was the one subverting the American electoral process, with the unprecedented and illicit cooperation of corrupt swamp dwellers in the upper reaches of the Obama administration. And it is important that the sedition be exposed, and Hillary Clinton and the rest be held accountable.

To this end the president should start releasing all the key documents that detail the depth and breadth of the scandal, who was involved in it, and how it unfolded. Attorney General William Barr needs to investigate how the Mueller investigation came about and, in particular, the matter of the manufactured predicate for the unprecedented and troubling mobilization of government resources to spy on the Trump presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, Judicial Watch has over 50 lawsuits to uncover more information, of which over a dozen relate to Mueller himself. The Democrat circus hearing may boomerang as the “investigation of the investigators” accelerates.

 

[barfo]

More deep state news!

• A lawyer for the New York man who was charged with killing an alleged mob boss reportedly says he did so to help President Donald Trump.
• Comello was consumed by online conspiracy theories, specifically QAnon, which baselessly posits the existence of a "deep state," or a secret and powerful network of people in the highest ranks in society, business, and politics.

barfo

 

[Lanny]

Comey's inside man at White House emerges as DOJ inspector general finalizes FISA abuse report
by Daniel Chaitin
& Jerry Dunleavy
| July 22, 2019 10:01 PM

Former FBI Director James Comey had an inside man at the White House, feeding the bureau information about President Trump and his aides in 2017.

Now this individual, who after leaving the government was hired by BuzzFeed to verify parts of British ex-spy Christopher Steele's dossier, may be tied to an investigation into alleged surveillance abuses by the DOJ and the FBI being conducted by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

This previously unreported mole in the White House appears in a new report by RealClearInvestigations that explored possible misconduct by Comey for what two U.S. officials described as essentially "running a covert operation against" the president even as he was assuring Trump he was not the subject of any investigation.

Anthony Ferrante, a longtime FBI official, worked as a cybersecurity adviser on the National Security Council. Officials said Ferrante was working in the White House even while the FBI held him on reserve status. All the while, he was sharing information about Trump and his aides back to FBI headquarters.

One former National Security Council official said Ferrante's unique position was highly irregular.

“In an unprecedented action, Comey created a new FBI reserve position for Ferrante, enabling him to have an ongoing relationship with the agency, retaining his clearances and enabling him to come back in [to bureau headquarters],” the official said, adding that the NSC division supervisor was "not allowed to get rid of Ferrante" and that the arrangement appeared to be "in direct conflict with the no-contact policy between the White House and the Department of Justice."

Ferrante left the White House in April 2017, not long before Trump fired Comey as FBI director.

He went on to join FTI Consulting, a business-advising firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. Through this firm, Ferrante was hired by BuzzFeed to investigate the dossier composed by Steele, to try and corroborate the unverified claims about Trump's ties to Russia that appear in the research.

Ferrante was replaced in the White House by another FBI official, Jordan Rae Kelly, who signed security logs for Ferrante to enter the White House while he was contracted by BuzzFeed. Kelly left the White House last year and also joined FTI Consulting.

The FBI declined to comment for this report.

The dossier was published by BuzzFeed in January 2017 after reports came out that Comey privately briefed then-President-elect Trump on select allegations from Steele's work at a Trump Tower briefing. This meeting in New York, which came one day after Comey met with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office with some of his top administration officials, is now under scrutiny by Horowitz's team.

In what has become an urgent area of consternation for Republican lawmakers, the FBI relied heavily on Steele's unverified dossier to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants filed to surveil onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Four FISA warrant applications and renewals were filed from October 2016 through June 2017 against Page. Steele was hired by opposition research firm Fusion GPS and his dossier was funded by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign.

While under contract for BuzzFeed, Ferrante compiled a report that was filed in federal court as part of a lawsuit over the publication of the dossier. He found that internet service providers mentioned in the dossier that were owned by Russian entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev may have been used by Russian agents to support the hack of the DNC and the campaign chairman of Clinton’s campaign during the 2016 election. Unlike Steele's dossier, Ferrante's report did not directly link Gubarev or his executives to the hacking. “I have no evidence of them actually sitting behind a keyboard,” Ferrante said in a deposition.

It is unclear whether Ferrante is still working for BuzzFeed. A spokesman for the outlet declined to comment on questions from the Washington Examiner about Ferrante. Ferrante did not immediately return an emailed request for comment from the Washington Examiner and a spokeswoman at FTI Consulting declined comment to RealClearInvestigations, as did Comey's attorney.

Horowitz's team has reviewed more than 1 million records and conducted more than 100 interviews, including with Comey and Steele. The information provided by Steele was reportedly interesting or credible enough to justify extending the length of the investigation, which Attorney General William Barr earlier this year had predicted would be complete by May or June.

House Judiciary Committee ranking member Doug Collins said over the weekend he expects the inspector general's report to be released this fall. The RealClearInvestigations report puts a release date sometime in September.

Meanwhile Attorney General William Barr is conducting a review of the origins of the Russia investigation, and he has said he is working very closely with Horowitz. The inspector general can recommend prosecutions, and U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Barr tasked to lead the review, has the ability to convene a grand jury and to subpoena people outside of the government.

Indictments any day now.

 

[Lanny]

Congress Should Stop Wasting Time On Mueller — And Investigate Hillary Clinton’s Role In Steel Dossier
Tom Fitton President, Judicial Watch

Congressional Democrats will finally get an opportunity to put on a public show starring former Special Counsel Robert Mueller when he appears before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

Mueller was last seen at his May 29 press statement, in which he attacked President Trump by promoting a tenuous theory of obstruction of justice as grounds for impeachment. Mueller, despite the “no collusion, no obstruction” conclusion of his dubious report, smeared the president by presuming him guilty anyway, claiming he was not exonerated and signaled House Democrats to begin impeachment proceedings.

before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

Mueller was last seen at his May 29 press statement, in which he attacked President Trump by promoting a tenuous theory of obstruction of justice as grounds for impeachment. Mueller, despite the “no collusion, no obstruction” conclusion of his dubious report, smeared the president by presuming him guilty anyway, claiming he was not exonerated and signaled House Democrats to begin impeachment proceedings.

This hearing will give Mueller and the Democrats an opportunity to once again push the “destroy Trump” narrative and jump-start the impeachment process. Mueller’s testimony will be geared to that end. Democratic questions will seek to fill in the blanks to preserve Mueller’s manufactured reputation for probity. And the mainstream media will be primed — and probably pre-briefed — to drive the point home.

However, unlike at his press statement where he allowed no questions, Mueller will now have to face hard scrutiny from Republicans and honest Democrats about the origins of his investigation, misconduct during the process, and his questionable, sometimes completely erroneous conclusions.

For example, why did Mueller sit on the fact that his team had early-on discovered that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, which was the central question of the entire Russiagate hoax? Were the midterm elections a factor in his delay for exonerating President Trump of Russia collusion?

Why did Mueller continue as special counsel after learning that former FBI Director James Comey broke the law to get him appointed by leaking information from President Trump’s FBI files to the New York Times, using a Columbia professor friend of his as a cut-out?

Why did Mueller populate his investigative team almost exclusively with people with obvious political bias against President Trump? What was the role of chief prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who hired many of the conflicted members of the team and who had been spotted at Hillary Clinton’s election night party?

Why did Mueller hide from the American people for four months Peter Strzok and Lisa Page’s outrageous conduct and flagrant anti-Trump bias, which necessitated they be fired from the investigation? And why did his office quietly delete all the text messages they passed while on his team, going so far as to reformat their government-issued phones?

Did Mueller’s office have any contacts with the media, such as leaking information regarding the massive pre-dawn raid on Roger Stone’s home, or the inexplicable guns-drawn action at the home of Paul Manafort?

Why didn’t Mueller investigate the Steele dossier that was the basis for the Russian collusion hoax? Why didn’t Mueller examine contacts between Steele, Fusion GPS employees like Nellie Ohr, and/or members of the Clinton campaign with the sketchy Russian sources who fed the rumors that were the basis of the dossier?
Judicial Watch is a joke. Does anyone outside of the Trump cult pay attention to that trash?
These are important questions since this was the only demonstrable Russian collusion in 2016, as the dossier was the prime vehicle for Russian interference in the election.

Critical questions can also be asked about Mueller’s report to the attorney general, 400 pages of rumor, innuendo and noise that boiled down to “no collusion, no obstruction.” Why did Mueller withhold information from the report that would have tended to make President Trump look good, such as the fact that Carter Page, far from being a Russian colluder, was in fact an FBI informant against Russia?

What does Mueller make of the fact that United States District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich issued an opinion on July 1 that Mueller did not in fact establish a Kremlin connection to the Internet Research Agency, the Russian organization Mueller claimed ran Moscow’s ‘active measures’ social media campaign in 2016?

Democrats, of course, won’t want to ask these hard questions because they are implicated in the scandal. Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff has a history of lying about President Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia and has serious ethics problems over mishandling of classified info and irregular communications with anti-Trump witnesses.

But regardless of what Mueller says or doesn’t say, it is critical to remember that this entire enterprise was illegitimate from the start. We arrived here largely because of one person — Hillary Clinton. The Clinton campaign paid for a smear operation against Donald Trump using Russian rumors filtered through Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS, and a dossier laundered through the Obama Justice Department and FBI to create a bogus psy-operation that ultimately led to the special counsel. Without Hillary Clinton, and the need to minimize the damage from her email scandal, there would have been no dossier, no FISA spy warrants, no collusion hoax, no special counsel, no coup cabal, no threats of impeachment, and no continued partisan harassment from Congress.

This is rooted in a Clinton campaign operation seeking to create a false narrative that the Russians were conspiring with Donald Trump to rig the 2016 election. But she was the one subverting the American electoral process, with the unprecedented and illicit cooperation of corrupt swamp dwellers in the upper reaches of the Obama administration. And it is important that the sedition be exposed, and Hillary Clinton and the rest be held accountable.

To this end the president should start releasing all the key documents that detail the depth and breadth of the scandal, who was involved in it, and how it unfolded. Attorney General William Barr needs to investigate how the Mueller investigation came about and, in particular, the matter of the manufactured predicate for the unprecedented and troubling mobilization of government resources to spy on the Trump presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, Judicial Watch has over 50 lawsuits to uncover more information, of which over a dozen relate to Mueller himself. The Democrat circus hearing may boomerang as the “investigation of the investigators” accelerates.

 

[MARIS61]

 

[Lanny]

Guilty! Where's the indictments?

 

[MARIS61]

 

[MARIS61]

Feds in final stages of possible prosecution decision for McCabe: 'Target on his back’

By Catherine Herridge, Alex Pappas | Fox News

Federal prosecutors appear to be close to a decision on whether to charge former FBI official Andrew McCabe over the circumstances that led to his firing from the bureau last year, Fox News has learned.

A source close to the process said that McCabe has had a “target on his back” because of the Justice Department inspector general findings against him over actions during the Hillary Clinton email investigation, as well as his role in the surveillance warrants against Trump campaign associates during the Russia investigation. McCabe is a former deputy and acting director of the FBI.

The New York Times, which first reported the developments Monday, said McCabe’s lawyers recently met with DOJ attorneys who would handle a prosecution – an indication of a possible indictment.

McCabe's legal team and the Justice Department declined to comment.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C. has not responded to a Fox News request for comment.

The McCabe developments come just days after CNN announced it has hired the former FBI official as a paid commentator – a move that has drawn criticism. President Trump tweeted last week that the hiring of McCabe was “disgraceful.”

Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe in March 2018 after the Justice Department inspector general report found he had repeatedly misstated his involvement in a leak to The Wall Street Journal regarding an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation.


Nunes: Comey and McCabe are 'dirty cops'

A source close to the process confirmed to Fox News that the inspector general files on McCabe went to U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is probing the origins of the Russia case, to investigate his actions.

McCabe has been singled out for attacks by the president since before he was elected after news emerged in the fall of 2016 that McCabe's wife had accepted campaign contributions from a political action committee associated with former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe during an unsuccessful run for the state senate there. McAuliffe is a close ally of Bill and Hillary Clinton, who was being investigated at the time for her use of a personal email server while she was secretary of state.

McCabe spent 21 years with the FBI. He became the acting director in May 2017 after the president fired former director James Comey.

Fox News' Jake Gibson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/feds-decision-mccabe

 

[MARIS61]

August 23, 2019 | Judicial Watch
Federal Judge Orders FBI to Search for Steele Documents

Federal Judge Orders FBI to Search for Steele Documents

ordered the FBI to conduct a search within 60 days for records of communications with former British spy and dossier author Christopher Steele post-dating Steele’s service as an FBI confidential source.

In ordering the supplemental search, Judge Cooper held:

[T]he potential for illuminating the FBI’s activities is not too difficult to discern. Communications post-dating Steele’s time as an informant might reveal a great deal about why the FBI developed him as a CHS [confidential human source], his performance as a CHS, and why the FBI opted to terminate its relationship with him. Those records might either bolster or weaken Steele’s credibility as a source. That information, in turn, could provide a basis on which to evaluate the FBI’s performance of its law-enforcement duties, including its judgment in selecting and relying on confidential sources, especially in connection with such a politically sensitive subject. Of course, the records Judicial Watch speculates about might not even exist—and even if they do, they may not reveal anything significant about the FBI’s operations. But that they might do so makes them a matter of potential public interest.

The court ruling came in our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for records of communications and payments between the FBI, Christopher Steele and his private firm, Orbis Business Intelligence (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice) (No. 1:17-cv-00916)).

The court initially ruled in favor of a DOJ “Glomar” response to our March 8, 2017, FOIA request stating that it could “neither confirm nor deny the existence of records responsive to [Judicial Watch’s] request.” On March 26, 2018, subsequent to the declassification of records revealing Steele’s role as an FBI informant and his firing by the FBI in November 2016, the court reopened the case at our request. The FBI, however, continued refusing to search for records post-dating Steele’s dismissal, contending that any records discovered would be exempt from disclosure on privacy grounds.

In his ruling, Judge Cooper held that, on balance, any privacy interests Steele may have in keeping the documents secret are outweighed by the public’s interest in disclosure:

Steele’s privacy interests are far different from those courts usually consider under Exemption 7(C), where disclosure would make public for the first time an individual’s affiliation with law enforcement, whether as agent, cooperator, or target … The balance therefore tilts in favor of disclosure. Accordingly, the Court will order the FBI to conduct a search for records post-dating Steele’s service as a confidential source.

The court was right to turn aside the FBI’s fake concerns for Clinton spy Christopher Steele’s privacy and order the agency to search for more records on its use of Steele and his dossier to target President Trump. That the FBI is still protecting Christopher Steele, and the existence of a Clinton spy ring at Fusion GPS should tell you there is much more corruption to be exposed in the coup efforts against President Trump.

Here is some background.

Documents previously produced in this lawsuit show that the FBI paid Steele at least 11 times during the 2016 presidential campaign and then fired him for leaking.

We also uncovered smoking gun documents showing that former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr remained in regular contact with Steele after Steele was terminated by the FBI in November 2016 for revealing to the media his position as an FBI confidential informant.

Through another FOIA lawsuit, we obtained emails of Bruce Ohr discussing information obtained through his wife Nellie, which he passed on to the FBI. The information contained anti-Trump dossier materials, including a spreadsheet that tries to link President Trump to dozens of Russians. These Justice Department documents also contain Russia-related emails sent from Nellie Ohr to high-ranking DOJ official Lisa Holtyn during the period Ohr worked with anti-Trump firm Fusion GPS, which contracted with Steele to create the Trump Dossier. Holtyn at the time was a top aide to Bruce Ohr.

We later acquired FBI 302 interview forms of Bruce Ohr’s reporting information he received from Steele to his FBI handlers.

We additionally uncovered documents from the U.S. Department of State revealing that State Department “Special Coordinator for Libya” Jonathan Winer played a key role in facilitating Steele’s access to other top government officials and prominent international business executives.

To watch Judicial Watch Director of Research and Investigations Chris Farrell’s interview on this, click here.

Last week, I spoke on Lou Dobbs’ show regarding documents we uncovered containing Russia-related emails sent from Nellie Ohr to high-ranking DOJ official Lisa Holtyn. At the time, Nellie Ohr worked with the anti-Trump dossier firm Fusion GPS. Holtyn, at the time, was a top aide to Nellie’s husband, former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr.

As you can see, we are at the forefront of exposing the Deep State coup attempt, and we are nowhere near finished.

https://www.judicialwatch.org/tom-f...ge-orders-fbi-to-search-for-steele-documents/

 

[Lanny]

Feds in final stages of possible prosecution decision for McCabe: 'Target on his back’

By Catherine Herridge, Alex Pappas | Fox News

Federal prosecutors appear to be close to a decision on whether to charge former FBI official Andrew McCabe over the circumstances that led to his firing from the bureau last year, Fox News has learned.

A source close to the process said that McCabe has had a “target on his back” because of the Justice Department inspector general findings against him over actions during the Hillary Clinton email investigation, as well as his role in the surveillance warrants against Trump campaign associates during the Russia investigation. McCabe is a former deputy and acting director of the FBI.

The New York Times, which first reported the developments Monday, said McCabe’s lawyers recently met with DOJ attorneys who would handle a prosecution – an indication of a possible indictment.

McCabe's legal team and the Justice Department declined to comment.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C. has not responded to a Fox News request for comment.

The McCabe developments come just days after CNN announced it has hired the former FBI official as a paid commentator – a move that has drawn criticism. President Trump tweeted last week that the hiring of McCabe was “disgraceful.”

Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe in March 2018 after the Justice Department inspector general report found he had repeatedly misstated his involvement in a leak to The Wall Street Journal regarding an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation.


Nunes: Comey and McCabe are 'dirty cops'

A source close to the process confirmed to Fox News that the inspector general files on McCabe went to U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is probing the origins of the Russia case, to investigate his actions.

McCabe has been singled out for attacks by the president since before he was elected after news emerged in the fall of 2016 that McCabe's wife had accepted campaign contributions from a political action committee associated with former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe during an unsuccessful run for the state senate there. McAuliffe is a close ally of Bill and Hillary Clinton, who was being investigated at the time for her use of a personal email server while she was secretary of state.

McCabe spent 21 years with the FBI. He became the acting director in May 2017 after the president fired former director James Comey.

Fox News' Jake Gibson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/feds-decision-mccabe

Let's wait until there's an actual indictment, although Trump hasn't been winning many court cases in his lifetime.

 

[MARIS61]

Justice Department inspector general has done separate report on James Comey
by Byron York
| August 28, 2019 12:30 PM

• 
  The Justice Department inspector general is preparing to release a report on the conduct of fired FBI Director James Comey in the Trump-Russia investigation, according to a number of sources with knowledge of the situation. The specific timing of the report's release is not clear.
  
  The Comey report is separate from a larger inspector general report on the DOJ's handling of the Trump-Russia probe. That report, sometimes referred to by Republicans as an investigation into "FISA abuse," is expected to be released later.
  
  It is not clear why the inspector general, Michael Horowitz, chose to write a separate report on Comey.
  
  Among other things, Comey has been under investigation for his handling of several memos he wrote memorializing conversations with President Trump. The memos began in January 2017, when Trump was still president-elect, and continued until April 2017, the month before Trump summarily fired the FBI director.
  
  Comey's memos were, at the least, confidential FBI documents, and at most, in some cases, classified. Comey told Congress that he sent some of the memos to a friend for the purpose of being leaked to the New York Times. Comey hoped media reports would set off a firestorm that would ultimately result in the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the Trump-Russia matter.
  
  That is precisely what happened with the appointment of Robert Mueller.
  
  It is not clear what conclusions Horowitz has reached about Comey's actions. Horowitz earlier referred the Comey memo matter to the Justice Department for possible prosecution, but Justice officials declined to go forward.
  
  Comey was also part of the process, much scrutinized by Republicans, through which the FBI sought and received a secret court warrant to wiretap short-term Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The FBI cited allegations from the now-discredited Steele dossier as part of its application for the warrant. That action drew much criticism from Republicans and was ultimately one of the main shapers of the inspector general's assignment.
  
  Sources say the Comey report will deal just with Comey's memos and not his broader role in the Trump-Russia investigation. As for Horowitz's main report, it is still unclear precisely what it will cover and when it will be made public.
  https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...neral-has-done-separate-report-on-james-comey

 

[MARIS61]

 

[Lanny]

Justice Department inspector general has done separate report on James Comey
by Byron York
| August 28, 2019 12:30 PM

• 
  The Justice Department inspector general is preparing to release a report on the conduct of fired FBI Director James Comey in the Trump-Russia investigation, according to a number of sources with knowledge of the situation. The specific timing of the report's release is not clear.
  
  The Comey report is separate from a larger inspector general report on the DOJ's handling of the Trump-Russia probe. That report, sometimes referred to by Republicans as an investigation into "FISA abuse," is expected to be released later.
  
  It is not clear why the inspector general, Michael Horowitz, chose to write a separate report on Comey.
  
  Among other things, Comey has been under investigation for his handling of several memos he wrote memorializing conversations with President Trump. The memos began in January 2017, when Trump was still president-elect, and continued until April 2017, the month before Trump summarily fired the FBI director.
  
  Comey's memos were, at the least, confidential FBI documents, and at most, in some cases, classified. Comey told Congress that he sent some of the memos to a friend for the purpose of being leaked to the New York Times. Comey hoped media reports would set off a firestorm that would ultimately result in the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the Trump-Russia matter.
  
  That is precisely what happened with the appointment of Robert Mueller.
  
  It is not clear what conclusions Horowitz has reached about Comey's actions. Horowitz earlier referred the Comey memo matter to the Justice Department for possible prosecution, but Justice officials declined to go forward.
  
  Comey was also part of the process, much scrutinized by Republicans, through which the FBI sought and received a secret court warrant to wiretap short-term Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The FBI cited allegations from the now-discredited Steele dossier as part of its application for the warrant. That action drew much criticism from Republicans and was ultimately one of the main shapers of the inspector general's assignment.
  
  Sources say the Comey report will deal just with Comey's memos and not his broader role in the Trump-Russia investigation. As for Horowitz's main report, it is still unclear precisely what it will cover and when it will be made public.
  https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...neral-has-done-separate-report-on-james-comey

Are there any indictments in our future?

 

[MARIS61]

September 06, 2019
Federal Judge Criticizes State and Justice Departments on Clinton Email Cover-Up

‘There is no FOIA exemption for political expedience, nor is there one for bureaucratic incompetence.’

‘The court thinks Judicial Watch ought to shake this tree.’

‘The good cause continues from whether or not State was acting in good faith, and I’ll tell you everything they’ve discovered in this period raises serious questions about what the hell the State Department’s doing here.’

‘Now we know more, but we have even more questions than answers. So I won’t hold it against Judicial Watch for expanding their initial discovery request now.’

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch released the transcript today from their hearing on Thursday, August 22, 2019, where U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth granted significant new discovery to Judicial Watch on the Clinton email issue (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01242)).

During the hearing, Judge Lamberth specifically raised concerns about a Clinton email cache recently discussed in a letter to Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) and wants Judicial Watch to “shake this tree” on this issue.


Just last week, the Senate’s – Senate Finance and Homeland Security Committees released documents revealing that Clinton IT aide Paul Combetta copied all but four of the missing emails to a Gmail account that does not appear to have ever been reconstructed and searched. The court thinks Judicial Watch ought to shake this tree.

Judge Lamberth also criticized the State Department’s handling and production of Clinton’s emails in this case stating, “There is no FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] exemption for political expedience, nor is there one for bureaucratic incompetence.”

In the beginning of their oral arguments, lawyers for the State Department wrongfully stated that Judicial Watch could no longer continue their discovery. The court stopped their arguments saying that Judicial Watch can continue to find more evidence in this case:

STATE DEPARTMENT: … it is, of course, Judicial Watch’s burden to explain to Your Honor why there has been good cause to reopen discovery now that discovery has closed in this case.

THE COURT: Well, I didn’t close discovery. So your premise is wrong.

STATE DEPARTMENT: Fair enough, Your Honor. Whether you want to call it closed or not, it is still —

THE COURT: I didn’t close it. I said I would have a status after they took this initial discovery, and that’s what I’m doing today. I didn’t close discovery.

STATE DEPARTMENT: That’s right, Your Honor, but it is still Judicial Watch’s —

THE COURT: So they don’t need any good cause —

STATE DEPARTMENT: Whether

THE COURT: — Today the good cause continues from whether or not State was acting in good faith, and I’ll tell you everything they’ve discovered in this period raises serious questions about what the hell the State Department’s doing here.

The court rejected DOJ and State efforts to derail further Judicial Watch discovery. Judge Lamberth called their arguments “preposterous” and cited a prior Judicial Watch FOIA case in which he ordered U.S. Marshals to seize records from a Clinton administration official.

I’ll tell you another thing I didn’t like in your brief. I’ll tell you right now upfront. You put in your brief the most preposterous thing, I thought, in your brief was the very idea that — let me read you the line. Competitive Enterprise Institute was a case of first impression and that some District Judge bought that and the Court of Appeals reversed it. Now, that wasn’t a case of first impression at all. The first impression with me was a case I had involving Ron Brown and the travel records of whether or not, in the Commerce Department — and it was a Judicial Watch case — whether or not the Commerce Department was selling seats on trade missions, and I had a Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce who took a box of records home and then they gave a no-records response and, in the course of that, I found out he had taken the records home and they said they had no records. I sent marshals over and they got the box at his house, and I ordered them – the marshals — to seize the records. That was the first case.


The Judge also stated that the government has mishandled this case and the discovery of information including former Secretary Clinton’s emails so poorly that Judicial Watch may have the ability to prove the they acted in “bad faith,” which would be entitle them to attorney’s fees.

Judge Lamberth detailed how the State Department “spent three months from November 2014 trying to make this case disappear,” and that after discovering the State Department’s actions and omissions, “Now we know more, but we have even more questions than answers. So I won’t hold it against Judicial Watch for expanding their initial discovery request now.”

Judge Lamberth stated his goal was to restore the public’s faith in their government, which may have been damaged because of the Clinton email investigation:

When I authorized discovery back in December, I described my goal: to rule out egregious government misconduct and vindicate the public’s faith in the State and Justice Departments. That’s still my goal today. This isn’t a case I relish, but it’s the case before me now, and it’s a case of the government’s making.”


The court granted Judicial Watch seven additional depositions, three interrogatories and four document requests related to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. Hillary Clinton and her former top aide and current lawyer Cheryl Mills were given 30 days to oppose being deposed by Judicial Watch.

Below is the court’s ruling from the bench granting Judicial Watch’s significant new discovery:

First, let me clarify the Government’s misunderstanding. We’re not reopening discovery here. Discovery never closed. Back in January, I said, quote, The Government will — the Court will hold a post-discovery hearing to ascertain the adequacy of State’s searches; to determine if Judicial Watch needs to depose additional witnesses, including Hillary Clinton or her former Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills; and to schedule dispositive motions, unquote. So June 19th was a checkpoint, not a finish line. And whether Judicial Watch previously knew about some of the other individuals it now wants to depose is beside the point. They tailored their initial discovery request to the facts and questions then before the Court.

Now we know more, but we have even more questions than answers. So I won’t hold it against Judicial Watch for expanding their initial discovery request now.

Remember what got us started down this path in the first place. In late 2014 and early 2015, at least some State Department officials knew Secretary Clinton’s emails were missing; they knew Judicial Watch didn’t know that; they knew the Court didn’t know that, but the Department pressed forward trying to settle this case. So I authorized discovery into whether these settlement efforts amounted to bad faith.

Now, the Government says, quote, there is simply no factual basis to justify any further discovery on that subject, unquote, but Judicial Watch’s most recent submission lays out the following:

It appears that in the middle of 2013, State’s Office of Information and Program Services launched an inquiry into Clinton’s email practices.

It appears that in August 2013, that office directed FOIA responders to stop issuing, quote, no record located, unquote, responses to FOIA requests for Clinton’s emails.

It appears that by the summer of 2014, State knew a large volume of Clinton’s emails had never been searched, potentially violating FOIA and record management obligations. It turns out State had a standing meeting every Wednesday afternoon during the summer of 2014 to discuss Clinton-related FOIA inquiries. Attendees included Secretary Kerry’s Chief of Staff; his Deputy Chief of Staff; the Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources; the Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs; several attorneys; and Patrick Kennedy, the Under Secretary for Management. That’s every Wednesday afternoon.

It appears that in August 2014, State began planning for media investigations into Clinton’s emails.

It appears that in November 2014, State told Judicial Watch it performed a legally adequate search and tried to settle. In fact, I think, in my original opinion on authorizing discovery, I noted that State had given a draft Vaughn index to Judicial Watch at that time. I don’t think I have ever seen that, but I think it was given to I think, in my opinion, I said that it had been given to Judicial Watch. Indeed, State spent the next three months from November 2014 trying to make this case disappear. They kept doing it even after they came into the possession of Clinton’s emails.

Judicial Watch wants to follow up with the State attorney assigned to this FOIA request to participate in settlement discussions and negotiations. That seems reasonable to me.

[Judicial Watch] wants to ask the Department official responsible for overseeing FOIA requests more about why he directed his office to stop using “no record located” responses to FOIA requests relating to Clinton’s emails if that, in fact, is what happened. I’m curious, too.

They want to ask the current Department FOIA overseer more about what went on in those weekly 2014 meetings. I look forward to hearing what he says.

They want to ask the Justice Department attorney who led the settlement negotiations to divulge when he learned Clinton’s emails were missing. He must answer.

Another reason we had this initial discovery was to see if Secretary Clinton intentionally attempted to evade FOIA by using a private email. When Judicial Watch deposed the Deputy Director who oversaw State’s FOIA responses, he recalled an instance when in — his office found an email from Clinton’s private account and the Public Affairs team said, Remember, you’re not supposed to use that email. How can you spin that?

I agree with Judicial Watch that it’s worth deposing the State Department records officer who personally reviewed archiving procedures with Secretary Clinton and her departing staff to see what they discussed.

I also think Judicial Watch is justified to seek more information about how Secretary Clinton ultimately determined which emails were public records and which were private.

The final reason I authorized discovery was to determine whether State adequately searched for records responsive to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request. Now the Government seeks to duck behind an unpublished D.C. Circuit opinion from 2018 holding the Government has already taken every reasonable action under the Federal Records Act to retrieve Clinton’s 30,000 missing emails and no imaginable enforcement action could recover any more.

But just last week, the Senate’s — Senate Finance and Homeland Security Committees released documents revealing Clinton IT aide Paul Combetta copied all but four of the missing emails to a Gmail account that does not appear to have ever been reconstructed and searched. The Court thinks Judicial Watch ought to shake this tree.

And the Court agrees with Judicial Watch that it should talk to three never-before-deposed State officials who raised concerns about Clinton’s private email use all the way back to 2009.

There is no FOIA exemption for political expedience, nor is there one for bureaucratic incompetence.

The Government also tries to say this Court [sic] is — no longer — or no longer presents a live controversy. This is wrong. Judicial Watch can still obtain fees if they prove agency bad faith.

I’ll close with this. When I authorized discovery back in December, I described my goal: to rule out egregious government misconduct and vindicate the public’s faith in the State and Justice Departments. That’s still my goal today. This isn’t a case I relish, but it’s the case before me now, and it’s a case of the government’s making.

The Court authorizes Judicial Watch to take the additional discovery described in its status report, except for deposing Secretary Clinton and her Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills. I will give their attorneys 30 days to file any additional opposition to their depositions and 10 days thereafter for Judicial Watch to file any reply, and I’ll issue a separate ruling on that. Otherwise, the discovery should go forward and all of it should be completed by December 13th. A status will be held on December 19th at 10:00 a.m. to set a further schedule in this case.

“Judicial Watch uncovered new information about the Clinton email scandal that a federal court agrees requires more answers. We share the court’s annoyance with DOJ lawyers who continue to defend the indefensible. It is beyond disturbing that the State and Justice Departments would continue to try to protect Hillary Clinton and cover up her email scandal. President Trump should order the agencies to cooperate in uncovering the truth,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

The new discovery comes in Judicial Watch’s July 2014 FOIA lawsuit filed after the U.S. Department of State failed to respond to a May 13, 2014, request for:

• Copies of any updates and/or talking points given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any federal agency concerning, regarding, or related to the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

• Any and all records or communications concerning, regarding, or relating to talking points or updates on the Benghazi attack given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any federal agency.

On December 6, 2018, Judge Lamberth ordered Obama administration senior State Department officials, lawyers and Clinton aides to be deposed or answer written questions under oath. The court ruled that the Clinton email system was “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.”

The court ordered discovery into three specific areas: whether Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server was intended to stymie FOIA; whether the State Department’s intent to settle this case in late 2014 and early 2015 amounted to bad faith; and whether the State Department has adequately searched for records responsive to Judicial Watch’s request.

This Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit led directly to the disclosure of the Clinton email system in 2015.

Judicial Watch’s discovery over the last several months found many more details about the scope of the Clinton email scandal and cover-up:

• John Hackett, former Director of Information Programs and Services (IPS) testified under oath that he had raised concerns that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s staff may have “culled out 30,000” of the secretary’s “personal” emails without following strict National Archives standards. He also revealed that he believed there was interference with the formal FOIA review process related to the classification of Clinton’s Benghazi-related emails.
• Heather Samuelson, Clinton’s White House liaison at the State Department, and later Clinton’s personal lawyer, admitted under oath that she was granted immunity by the Department of Justice in June 2016.
• Justin Cooper, former aide to President Bill Clinton and Clinton Foundation employee who registered the domain name of the unsecure clintonemail.com server that Clinton used while serving as Secretary of State, testified he worked with Huma Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, to create the non-government email system.
• In the interrogatory responses of E.W. (Bill) Priestap, assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division, he stated that the agency found Clinton email records in the Obama White House, specifically, the Executive Office of the President.
• Jacob “Jake” Sullivan, Clinton’s senior advisor and deputy chief of staff when she was secretary of state, testified that both he and Clinton used her unsecure non-government email system to conduct official State Department business.
• Eric Boswell, former assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, testified that Clinton was warned twice against using unsecure BlackBerry’s and personal emails to transmit classified material.

https://www.judicialwatch.org/press...ustice-departments-on-clinton-email-cover-up/

 

[Lanny]

September 06, 2019
Federal Judge Criticizes State and Justice Departments on Clinton Email Cover-Up

‘There is no FOIA exemption for political expedience, nor is there one for bureaucratic incompetence.’

‘The court thinks Judicial Watch ought to shake this tree.’

‘The good cause continues from whether or not State was acting in good faith, and I’ll tell you everything they’ve discovered in this period raises serious questions about what the hell the State Department’s doing here.’

‘Now we know more, but we have even more questions than answers. So I won’t hold it against Judicial Watch for expanding their initial discovery request now.’

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch released the transcript today from their hearing on Thursday, August 22, 2019, where U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth granted significant new discovery to Judicial Watch on the Clinton email issue (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01242)).

During the hearing, Judge Lamberth specifically raised concerns about a Clinton email cache recently discussed in a letter to Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) and wants Judicial Watch to “shake this tree” on this issue.


Just last week, the Senate’s – Senate Finance and Homeland Security Committees released documents revealing that Clinton IT aide Paul Combetta copied all but four of the missing emails to a Gmail account that does not appear to have ever been reconstructed and searched. The court thinks Judicial Watch ought to shake this tree.

Judge Lamberth also criticized the State Department’s handling and production of Clinton’s emails in this case stating, “There is no FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] exemption for political expedience, nor is there one for bureaucratic incompetence.”

In the beginning of their oral arguments, lawyers for the State Department wrongfully stated that Judicial Watch could no longer continue their discovery. The court stopped their arguments saying that Judicial Watch can continue to find more evidence in this case:

STATE DEPARTMENT: … it is, of course, Judicial Watch’s burden to explain to Your Honor why there has been good cause to reopen discovery now that discovery has closed in this case.

THE COURT: Well, I didn’t close discovery. So your premise is wrong.

STATE DEPARTMENT: Fair enough, Your Honor. Whether you want to call it closed or not, it is still —

THE COURT: I didn’t close it. I said I would have a status after they took this initial discovery, and that’s what I’m doing today. I didn’t close discovery.

STATE DEPARTMENT: That’s right, Your Honor, but it is still Judicial Watch’s —

THE COURT: So they don’t need any good cause —

STATE DEPARTMENT: Whether

THE COURT: — Today the good cause continues from whether or not State was acting in good faith, and I’ll tell you everything they’ve discovered in this period raises serious questions about what the hell the State Department’s doing here.

The court rejected DOJ and State efforts to derail further Judicial Watch discovery. Judge Lamberth called their arguments “preposterous” and cited a prior Judicial Watch FOIA case in which he ordered U.S. Marshals to seize records from a Clinton administration official.

I’ll tell you another thing I didn’t like in your brief. I’ll tell you right now upfront. You put in your brief the most preposterous thing, I thought, in your brief was the very idea that — let me read you the line. Competitive Enterprise Institute was a case of first impression and that some District Judge bought that and the Court of Appeals reversed it. Now, that wasn’t a case of first impression at all. The first impression with me was a case I had involving Ron Brown and the travel records of whether or not, in the Commerce Department — and it was a Judicial Watch case — whether or not the Commerce Department was selling seats on trade missions, and I had a Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce who took a box of records home and then they gave a no-records response and, in the course of that, I found out he had taken the records home and they said they had no records. I sent marshals over and they got the box at his house, and I ordered them – the marshals — to seize the records. That was the first case.


The Judge also stated that the government has mishandled this case and the discovery of information including former Secretary Clinton’s emails so poorly that Judicial Watch may have the ability to prove the they acted in “bad faith,” which would be entitle them to attorney’s fees.

Judge Lamberth detailed how the State Department “spent three months from November 2014 trying to make this case disappear,” and that after discovering the State Department’s actions and omissions, “Now we know more, but we have even more questions than answers. So I won’t hold it against Judicial Watch for expanding their initial discovery request now.”

Judge Lamberth stated his goal was to restore the public’s faith in their government, which may have been damaged because of the Clinton email investigation:

When I authorized discovery back in December, I described my goal: to rule out egregious government misconduct and vindicate the public’s faith in the State and Justice Departments. That’s still my goal today. This isn’t a case I relish, but it’s the case before me now, and it’s a case of the government’s making.”


The court granted Judicial Watch seven additional depositions, three interrogatories and four document requests related to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. Hillary Clinton and her former top aide and current lawyer Cheryl Mills were given 30 days to oppose being deposed by Judicial Watch.

Below is the court’s ruling from the bench granting Judicial Watch’s significant new discovery:

First, let me clarify the Government’s misunderstanding. We’re not reopening discovery here. Discovery never closed. Back in January, I said, quote, The Government will — the Court will hold a post-discovery hearing to ascertain the adequacy of State’s searches; to determine if Judicial Watch needs to depose additional witnesses, including Hillary Clinton or her former Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills; and to schedule dispositive motions, unquote. So June 19th was a checkpoint, not a finish line. And whether Judicial Watch previously knew about some of the other individuals it now wants to depose is beside the point. They tailored their initial discovery request to the facts and questions then before the Court.

Now we know more, but we have even more questions than answers. So I won’t hold it against Judicial Watch for expanding their initial discovery request now.

Remember what got us started down this path in the first place. In late 2014 and early 2015, at least some State Department officials knew Secretary Clinton’s emails were missing; they knew Judicial Watch didn’t know that; they knew the Court didn’t know that, but the Department pressed forward trying to settle this case. So I authorized discovery into whether these settlement efforts amounted to bad faith.

Now, the Government says, quote, there is simply no factual basis to justify any further discovery on that subject, unquote, but Judicial Watch’s most recent submission lays out the following:

It appears that in the middle of 2013, State’s Office of Information and Program Services launched an inquiry into Clinton’s email practices.

It appears that in August 2013, that office directed FOIA responders to stop issuing, quote, no record located, unquote, responses to FOIA requests for Clinton’s emails.

It appears that by the summer of 2014, State knew a large volume of Clinton’s emails had never been searched, potentially violating FOIA and record management obligations. It turns out State had a standing meeting every Wednesday afternoon during the summer of 2014 to discuss Clinton-related FOIA inquiries. Attendees included Secretary Kerry’s Chief of Staff; his Deputy Chief of Staff; the Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources; the Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs; several attorneys; and Patrick Kennedy, the Under Secretary for Management. That’s every Wednesday afternoon.

It appears that in August 2014, State began planning for media investigations into Clinton’s emails.

It appears that in November 2014, State told Judicial Watch it performed a legally adequate search and tried to settle. In fact, I think, in my original opinion on authorizing discovery, I noted that State had given a draft Vaughn index to Judicial Watch at that time. I don’t think I have ever seen that, but I think it was given to I think, in my opinion, I said that it had been given to Judicial Watch. Indeed, State spent the next three months from November 2014 trying to make this case disappear. They kept doing it even after they came into the possession of Clinton’s emails.

Judicial Watch wants to follow up with the State attorney assigned to this FOIA request to participate in settlement discussions and negotiations. That seems reasonable to me.

[Judicial Watch] wants to ask the Department official responsible for overseeing FOIA requests more about why he directed his office to stop using “no record located” responses to FOIA requests relating to Clinton’s emails if that, in fact, is what happened. I’m curious, too.

They want to ask the current Department FOIA overseer more about what went on in those weekly 2014 meetings. I look forward to hearing what he says.

They want to ask the Justice Department attorney who led the settlement negotiations to divulge when he learned Clinton’s emails were missing. He must answer.

Another reason we had this initial discovery was to see if Secretary Clinton intentionally attempted to evade FOIA by using a private email. When Judicial Watch deposed the Deputy Director who oversaw State’s FOIA responses, he recalled an instance when in — his office found an email from Clinton’s private account and the Public Affairs team said, Remember, you’re not supposed to use that email. How can you spin that?

I agree with Judicial Watch that it’s worth deposing the State Department records officer who personally reviewed archiving procedures with Secretary Clinton and her departing staff to see what they discussed.

I also think Judicial Watch is justified to seek more information about how Secretary Clinton ultimately determined which emails were public records and which were private.

The final reason I authorized discovery was to determine whether State adequately searched for records responsive to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request. Now the Government seeks to duck behind an unpublished D.C. Circuit opinion from 2018 holding the Government has already taken every reasonable action under the Federal Records Act to retrieve Clinton’s 30,000 missing emails and no imaginable enforcement action could recover any more.

But just last week, the Senate’s — Senate Finance and Homeland Security Committees released documents revealing Clinton IT aide Paul Combetta copied all but four of the missing emails to a Gmail account that does not appear to have ever been reconstructed and searched. The Court thinks Judicial Watch ought to shake this tree.

And the Court agrees with Judicial Watch that it should talk to three never-before-deposed State officials who raised concerns about Clinton’s private email use all the way back to 2009.

There is no FOIA exemption for political expedience, nor is there one for bureaucratic incompetence.

The Government also tries to say this Court [sic] is — no longer — or no longer presents a live controversy. This is wrong. Judicial Watch can still obtain fees if they prove agency bad faith.

I’ll close with this. When I authorized discovery back in December, I described my goal: to rule out egregious government misconduct and vindicate the public’s faith in the State and Justice Departments. That’s still my goal today. This isn’t a case I relish, but it’s the case before me now, and it’s a case of the government’s making.

The Court authorizes Judicial Watch to take the additional discovery described in its status report, except for deposing Secretary Clinton and her Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills. I will give their attorneys 30 days to file any additional opposition to their depositions and 10 days thereafter for Judicial Watch to file any reply, and I’ll issue a separate ruling on that. Otherwise, the discovery should go forward and all of it should be completed by December 13th. A status will be held on December 19th at 10:00 a.m. to set a further schedule in this case.

“Judicial Watch uncovered new information about the Clinton email scandal that a federal court agrees requires more answers. We share the court’s annoyance with DOJ lawyers who continue to defend the indefensible. It is beyond disturbing that the State and Justice Departments would continue to try to protect Hillary Clinton and cover up her email scandal. President Trump should order the agencies to cooperate in uncovering the truth,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

The new discovery comes in Judicial Watch’s July 2014 FOIA lawsuit filed after the U.S. Department of State failed to respond to a May 13, 2014, request for:

• Copies of any updates and/or talking points given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any federal agency concerning, regarding, or related to the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

• Any and all records or communications concerning, regarding, or relating to talking points or updates on the Benghazi attack given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any federal agency.

On December 6, 2018, Judge Lamberth ordered Obama administration senior State Department officials, lawyers and Clinton aides to be deposed or answer written questions under oath. The court ruled that the Clinton email system was “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.”

The court ordered discovery into three specific areas: whether Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server was intended to stymie FOIA; whether the State Department’s intent to settle this case in late 2014 and early 2015 amounted to bad faith; and whether the State Department has adequately searched for records responsive to Judicial Watch’s request.

This Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit led directly to the disclosure of the Clinton email system in 2015.

Judicial Watch’s discovery over the last several months found many more details about the scope of the Clinton email scandal and cover-up:

• John Hackett, former Director of Information Programs and Services (IPS) testified under oath that he had raised concerns that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s staff may have “culled out 30,000” of the secretary’s “personal” emails without following strict National Archives standards. He also revealed that he believed there was interference with the formal FOIA review process related to the classification of Clinton’s Benghazi-related emails.
• Heather Samuelson, Clinton’s White House liaison at the State Department, and later Clinton’s personal lawyer, admitted under oath that she was granted immunity by the Department of Justice in June 2016.
• Justin Cooper, former aide to President Bill Clinton and Clinton Foundation employee who registered the domain name of the unsecure clintonemail.com server that Clinton used while serving as Secretary of State, testified he worked with Huma Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, to create the non-government email system.
• In the interrogatory responses of E.W. (Bill) Priestap, assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division, he stated that the agency found Clinton email records in the Obama White House, specifically, the Executive Office of the President.
• Jacob “Jake” Sullivan, Clinton’s senior advisor and deputy chief of staff when she was secretary of state, testified that both he and Clinton used her unsecure non-government email system to conduct official State Department business.
• Eric Boswell, former assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, testified that Clinton was warned twice against using unsecure BlackBerry’s and personal emails to transmit classified material.

https://www.judicialwatch.org/press...ustice-departments-on-clinton-email-cover-up/

This must mean that Hillary will be indicted any day now.
Say, this any day now crap is turning out to be decades in the making. So, what gives? Wait a minute. I just realized that it's all due to the deep state, LOL.

 

[MARIS61]

US attorney recommends proceeding with charges against McCabe, as DOJ rejects last-ditch appeal
By Jake Gibson | Fox News

U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu has recommended moving forward with charges against Andrew McCabe, Fox News has learned, as the Justice Department rejects a last-ditch appeal from the former top FBI official.

McCabe appealed the decision of the U.S. attorney for Washington all the way up to the deputy attorney general, but the department rejected that request, according to a person familiar with the situation.

The potential charges relate to DOJ inspector general findings against him regarding misleading statements during the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

A source close to McCabe’s legal team said they received an email from the Department of Justice which said, "The Department rejected your appeal of the United States Attorney’s Office’s decision in this matter. Any further inquiries should be directed to the United States Attorney’s Office."

 

[CupWizier]

US attorney recommends proceeding with charges against McCabe, as DOJ rejects last-ditch appeal
By Jake Gibson | Fox News

U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu has recommended moving forward with charges against Andrew McCabe, Fox News has learned, as the Justice Department rejects a last-ditch appeal from the former top FBI official.

McCabe appealed the decision of the U.S. attorney for Washington all the way up to the deputy attorney general, but the department rejected that request, according to a person familiar with the situation.

The potential charges relate to DOJ inspector general findings against him regarding misleading statements during the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

A source close to McCabe’s legal team said they received an email from the Department of Justice which said, "The Department rejected your appeal of the United States Attorney’s Office’s decision in this matter. Any further inquiries should be directed to the United States Attorney’s Office."

FAKE NEWS

 

[Lanny]

US attorney recommends proceeding with charges against McCabe, as DOJ rejects last-ditch appeal
By Jake Gibson | Fox News

U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu has recommended moving forward with charges against Andrew McCabe, Fox News has learned, as the Justice Department rejects a last-ditch appeal from the former top FBI official.

McCabe appealed the decision of the U.S. attorney for Washington all the way up to the deputy attorney general, but the department rejected that request, according to a person familiar with the situation.

The potential charges relate to DOJ inspector general findings against him regarding misleading statements during the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

A source close to McCabe’s legal team said they received an email from the Department of Justice which said, "The Department rejected your appeal of the United States Attorney’s Office’s decision in this matter. Any further inquiries should be directed to the United States Attorney’s Office."

Liu previously worked on the Trump transition team.

 

[Lanny]

US attorney recommends proceeding with charges against McCabe, as DOJ rejects last-ditch appeal
By Jake Gibson | Fox News

U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu has recommended moving forward with charges against Andrew McCabe, Fox News has learned, as the Justice Department rejects a last-ditch appeal from the former top FBI official.

McCabe appealed the decision of the U.S. attorney for Washington all the way up to the deputy attorney general, but the department rejected that request, according to a person familiar with the situation.

The potential charges relate to DOJ inspector general findings against him regarding misleading statements during the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

A source close to McCabe’s legal team said they received an email from the Department of Justice which said, "The Department rejected your appeal of the United States Attorney’s Office’s decision in this matter. Any further inquiries should be directed to the United States Attorney’s Office."

Do you have a credible link? And when do you expect an indictment? Any day now?

 

[calvin natt]

wheeeeeeee!

 

[MARIS61]

Justice Dept. IG referred James Comey for criminal prosecution

By Jeff Mordock - The Washington Times - Wednesday, September 18, 201


Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said Wednesday that he referred former FBI Director James B. Comey for criminal prosecution this year after concluding he leaked sensitive materials to a friend.


And the Justice Department watchdog told Congress he would “assess” Republican allegations of inconsistent statements in Mr. Comey’s testimony before the Senate.

Mr. Horowitz’s disclosure that he made the criminal referral marks his first public statement about the criticism lodged against Mr. Comey in a report released last summer. He told lawmakers it is standard practice to make a criminal referral when wrongdoing is suspected.

“We are required by the [Inspector General] Act to send information that we’ve identified that could plausibly be criminal to the Department of Justice,” Mr. Horowitz said.

The Justice Department ultimately decided not to prosecute Mr. Comey despite the conclusion by Mr. Horowitz’s team that he improperly leaked information to the news media. The documents leaked by Mr. Comey were sensitive but not classified.

Mr. Comey in May 2017 asked a law professor friend to share with The New York Times a memo detailing his conversations with President Trump to pressure the Justice Department to open an investigation of the president.


In a report released last month, Mr. Horowitz wrote that the former FBI director “set a dangerous example” when he shared the memos to push the Justice Department to act.


Testifying before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, the Justice Department watchdog said Mr. Comey’s behavior was worrisome.


“Our concern was empowering FBI directors or, frankly, any FBI employee with the authority to decide they are not going to follow established norms and procedures because, in their view, they’ve made a judgment that the individuals they are dealing with can’t be trusted,” he said.


When asked if Mr. Comey’s holding the highest position in the bureau added to his concern, Mr. Horowitz confirmed it had.


Rep. Jody Hice, Georgia Republican, called Mr. Horowitz’s revelation of the criminal referral of Mr. Comey “monumental.”

Rep. Mark Meadows, North Carolina Republican, asked Mr. Horowitz if he would look into allegations Mr. Comey was inconsistent during Senate testimony. Mr. Meadows said he believes there were “a number” of times when the ex-FBI director’s testimony did not match revelations included in the inspector general report.

For example, Mr. Meadows said the then-FBI director denied opening an obstruction of justice probe based on comments Mr. Trump made to him. But Mr. Horowitz’s team found Mr. Comey leaked memos of his conversations with the president to get a special counsel appointed.

“I’m finding just a number of irregularities,” Mr. Meadows said. “So would it be appropriate if ranking member Jordan and I were to refer those inconsistencies to the IG and if we did that, would the IG look at those inconsistencies?”

Mr. Horowitz said he would look into the matter.

“It is certainly appropriate for us to get a referral about a then-employee of the department and then we would assess it,” he said.

When asked if he knew of another FBI director referred for criminal prosecution, Mr. Horowitz said he did not.

Mr. Horowitz also fielded a few questions about his upcoming investigation into alleged Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuses by the Justice Department and FBI. He revealed little about his findings, which are expected to be released this month.

The FBI and Justice Department are reviewing his conclusions, Mr. Horowitz said, adding they will decide how much of his findings will be classified.

“That is normal process,” he said.