In a turn of events that will only shock those unfamiliar with the Washington, D.C. swamp, the Department of Justice announced Friday that it would drop its criminal investigation into ex-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
In a letter sent from J.P. Cooney, head of the DOJ’s Fraud &amp; Public Corruption Section and Molly Gaston, assistant U.S. attorney, the department said that the government has decided to drop the investigation and charges”
<blockquote>We write to inform you that, after careful consideration, the Government has decided not to pursue criminal charges against your client, Andrew G. McCabe, arising from the referral by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to our Office of conduct described in OIG’s April 13, 2018, report entitled, “A Report of Investigation of Certain Allegations Relating to Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.” Based on the totality of the circumstances and all of the information known to the Government at this time, we consider the matter closed. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.</blockquote>
McCabe was fired in 2018. One month before, the OIG released the aforementioned <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4437277/DOJ-OIG-McCabe-Report.pdf">report</a>, which found that McCabe “lacked candor, including under oath, on multiple occasions in connection with describing his role in connection with a disclosure to the [Wall Street Journal]”
As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ex-fbi-deputy-director-sues-bureau-doj-over-ashe-schow?fbclid=IwAR1W8CAW-H-rSTJwb3Tfym4P9Oio1igkLGQLNx5j4HdX088i0wyPTNaGQlA">wrote</a> last year, such dishonesty is a violation of FBI policy. The OIG also determined that McCabe violated FBI and DOJ policy by disclosing “the existence of an ongoing investigation in the manner described in this report.”
In August 2019, McCabe filed a lawsuit against the DOJ claiming his firing was a “politically motivated and retaliatory demotion.” He was demoted in January 2018 and fired in March after the OIG report. McCabe claimed in his lawsuit that President Donald Trump “purposefully and intentionally” pressured the DOJ to fire McCabe in order to discredit the FBI’s investigation into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election.
An investigation from Special Counsel Robert Mueller determined no one from the Trump campaign worked with Russia to steal the election.
In February 2019, McCabe appeared on “60 Minutes” and claimed members of the Trump cabinet were considering using the 25th Amendment to oust Trump from office, according to host Scott Pelley.
“There were meetings at the Justice Department at which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment,” Pelley said. “These were the eight days from [Fired FBI Director James] Comey’s firing to the point that Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel. And the highest levels of American law enforcement were trying to figure out what do with the president.”
McCabe also said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein repeatedly discussed wearing a wire to record his conversations with Trump. Rosenstein dismissed the claim previously as a joke.
The DOJ released a statement denying McCabe’s claims.
“The Deputy Attorney General never authorized any recording that Mr. McCabe references,” the statement said. “As the Deputy Attorney General previously has stated, based on his personal dealings with the President, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment, nor was the DAG in a position to consider invoking the 25th Amendment.”
It should be noted that members of Trump’s orbit who have lied to the FBI have been criminally charged, including Gen. Michael Flynn and Roger Stone.

Andrew McCabe

Justice Department Drops Criminal Investigation Into FBI Official Andrew McCabe, Who Was Fired For Lying Under Oath

Department of Justice

According to CBS News&#8217; sources, Department of Justice officials, at the direction of Attorney General William Barr, have been &#8220;quietly&#8221; reviewing over the past &#8220;several weeks&#8221; records and documents related to the &#8220;Ukraine matter,&#8221; including documents provided by Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Citing a source familiar with the matter, CBS News&#8217; Catherine Herridge and Clare Hymes <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/justice-department-has-been-reviewing-ukraine-material-for-several-weeks-source-says/">reported</a> Tuesday that &#8220;staff outside of Main Justice in Washington have been assigned by Attorney General William Barr to review the Ukraine matter, adding that the review is being handled by the U.S. Attorney&#8217;s Office in Pittsburgh and is separate from U.S. Attorney John Durham&#8217;s probe into the origins of the FBI&#8217;s Russia probe.&#8221;
Among the materials reportedly being reviewed by Justice Department officials at Barr&#8217;s behest are some provided by Giuliani, who was specifically mentioned by President Trump in his famous July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and who appears to have served as point man for the pursuit of investigations into allegations of corruption involving former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, and Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.
Herridge and Hymes note that that investigation also &#8220;goes beyond&#8221; matters related to the Bidens, according to the source.
In the call which sparked the Democrats&#8217; impeachment campaign, President Trump asked Zelensky to &#8220;look into&#8221; the allegations involving the Bidens and Burisma. After a whistleblower complaint accused Trump of attempting to pressure Ukraine into investigating his political rival, Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry resulting in two articles of impeachment, which passed in the House but for which Trump was acquitted by the Senate.
As Herridge and Hymes reports, the allegations involving the Bidens and Ukraine &#8220;have gained new life&#8221; since Trump&#8217;s acquittal, with Barr stating Monday that the department has established an &#8220;intake process in the field&#8221; for material concerning Ukraine.
During the impeachment trial in the Senate, Trump&#8217;s lawyers repeatedly brought up the issue of corruption in Ukraine, around which Trump&#8217;s request to Zelensky centered. At one point, President Trump’s deputy counsel Patrick Philbin connected the &#8220;Ukraine matter&#8221; to the whistleblower whose complaint sparked the impeachment.
“If the whistleblower, as is alleged in some public reports, actually did work for then-Vice President Biden on Ukraine issues, exactly what was his role?” asked Philbin. “What was his involvement when issues were raised — we know from testimony that questions were raised — about the potential conflict of interest that the vice president then had when his son was sitting on the board of Burisma. Was the alleged whistleblower involved in any of that and in making decisions to not do anything related to that? Did he have some reason to want to put the deep-six on any question raising any issue about what went on with the Bidens and Burisma and firing Shokin and withholding a billion dollars in loan guarantees and enforcing a very explicit quid pro quo — you won’t get this billion dollars until you fire him? We don’t know. And because Manager [Rep. Adam] Schiff was guiding this whole process, because he was the chairman in charge of directing the inquiry and directing it away from any of those questions, that creates a real due process defect in the record that has been presented here.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-fbi-director-just-admitted-surveillance-of-my-campaign-was-illegal">Trump: FBI Director Just Admitted Surveillance Of My Campaign Was Illegal</a>
<div class="content-recirculation__wrapper "></div>

Joe Hunter Biden

Report: Justice Department Has Been ‘Quietly’ Reviewing Ukraine Materials For Several Weeks, Separate From Durham Probe

Donald Trump

Hunter Biden

Impeachment

Joe Biden

William Barr

Democrats want yet another investigation into Donald Trump, this time involving his tweets about the sentencing of his longtime associate Roger Stone after the Department of Justice revealed Tuesday that it will be reducing the &#8220;excessive and unwarranted&#8221; sentencing recommendation of its prosecutors.
&#8220;By tweet [President Trump] engaged in political interference in the sentencing of Roger Stone,&#8221; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) <a href="https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi/status/1227421325217685507?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1227421325217685507&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthehill.com%2Fhomenews%2Fadministration%2F482693-pelosi-calls-for-investigation-into-roger-stone-sentencing">tweeted</a> Tuesday evening. &#8220;It is outrageous that DOJ has deeply damaged the rule of law by withdrawing its recommendation. Stepping down of prosecutors should be commended &amp; actions of DOJ should be investigated.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
By tweet <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a> engaged in political interference in the sentencing of Roger Stone. It is outrageous that DOJ has deeply damaged the rule of law by withdrawing its recommendation. Stepping down of prosecutors should be commended &amp; actions of DOJ should be investigated.
&mdash; Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) <a href="https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi/status/1227421325217685507?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Pelosi isn&#8217;t the only Democratic leader calling for an investigation into Trump&#8217;s tweets. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is also demanding action over the Justice Department&#8217;s intervention, as reported by <a href="https://apnews.com/f9addeca0df46d91442701d1420ed046">The Associated Press</a>, while the man who helmed the impeachment inquiry, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA), is decrying the DOJ&#8217;s move as evidence of Trump trying to &#8220;cover up his own misconduct.&#8221;
The Justice Department intervening “would send an unmistakable message that President Trump will protect those who lie to Congress to cover up his own misconduct, and that the Attorney General will join him in that effort,” said Schiff.
But Trump says he&#8217;s got every right to express his disapproval of the handling of the Stone case, telling reporters Tuesday, &#8220;I have the absolute right to do it.&#8221;
&#8220;I stay out of things to a degree that people wouldn’t believe, but I didn’t speak to them,&#8221; he added, as reported by AP.
The Justice Department, meanwhile, says its decision to revise the sentencing recommendation was made Monday night, before Trump first tweeted out his criticism and without consultation with the White House, AP notes.
After federal prosecutors filed a memorandum Monday recommending Stone serve seven to nine years (between 87 and 108 months) in federal prison for process crimes stemming for the congressional investigation into alleged Trump-Russia &#8220;collusion,&#8221; — a recommendation the Justice Department has since rebuked as &#8220;excessive and unwarranted&#8221; — Trump unloaded on the &#8220;miscarriage of justice&#8221; Tuesday morning.
&#8220;This is a horrible and very unfair situation,&#8221; Trump tweeted in what was to be the first of a series of posts on the case throughout the day (posts below). &#8220;The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!&#8221;
&#8220;All starting to unravel with the ridiculous 9 year sentence recommendation!&#8221; the president tweeted in response to reports that the DOJ would be reducing the sentencing.
&#8220;And a swamp creature with &#8216;pull&#8217; was just sentenced to two months in jail for a similar thing that they want Stone to serve 9 years for. A phony Mueller Witch Hunt disgrace. Caught!&#8221; Trump added in another post.
&#8220;Congratulations to Attorney General Bill Barr for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought,&#8221; the president wrote in a follow-up tweet. &#8220;Evidence now clearly shows that the Mueller Scam was improperly brought &amp; tainted. Even Bob Mueller lied to Congress!&#8221;
&#8220;Two months in jail for a Swamp Creature, yet 9 years recommended for Roger Stone (who was not even working for the Trump Campaign),&#8221; Trump added in another post. &#8220;Gee, that sounds very fair! Rogue prosecutors maybe? The Swamp!&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/all-four-prosecutors-quit-after-justice-department-intervenes-on-excessive-stone-sentencing-trump-applauds">All Four Prosecutors Quit After Justice Department Intervenes On ‘Excessive’ Stone Sentencing; Trump Applauds</a>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice! <a href="https://t.co/rHPfYX6Vbv">https://t.co/rHPfYX6Vbv</a>
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1227122206783811585?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 11, 2020</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
All starting to unravel with the ridiculous 9 year sentence recommendation! <a href="https://t.co/6baxv3Lvuk">https://t.co/6baxv3Lvuk</a>
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1227407106652897280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
&#8230;And a swamp creature with “pull” was just sentenced to two months in jail for a similar thing that they want Stone to serve 9 years for. A phony Mueller Witch Hunt disgrace. Caught! <a href="https://t.co/6baxv3Lvuk">https://t.co/6baxv3Lvuk</a>
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1227411907478421505?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Congratulations to Attorney General Bill Barr for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought. Evidence now clearly shows that the Mueller Scam was improperly brought &amp; tainted. Even Bob Mueller lied to Congress!
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1227561237782855680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Two months in jail for a Swamp Creature, yet 9 years recommended for Roger Stone (who was not even working for the Trump Campaign). Gee, that sounds very fair! Rogue prosecutors maybe? The Swamp! <a href="https://twitter.com/foxandfriends?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@foxandfriends</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TuckerCarlson</a>
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1227564604177469441?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
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This article has been revised for clarity.

President Trump

Trump Defends His Actions As Pelosi Calls For Investigation Into DOJ Intervening In Stone Case

Charles Schumer

Nancy Pelosi

Robert Mueller

Roger Stone

United States Attorney General William Barr confirmed on Monday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has established an intake process to review information on 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, regarding their dealings in Ukraine.
&#8220;General Barr, Senator Graham says that Rudy Giuliani will be providing the Department information related to the Ukraine and the Bidens,&#8221; a reporter said to Barr during a news conference. &#8220;What is the process for receiving this information? Who will evaluate it? And is this something that you feel you need to recuse yourself from?&#8221;
“As I’ve previously said, the DOJ has the obligation to have an open door to anybody who wishes to provide us information that they think is relevant, but as I did say to Senator Graham, we have to be very careful with respect to any information coming from Ukraine,&#8221; Barr responded. &#8220;There are a lot of agendas in Ukraine, there are a lot of cross currents, and we can’t take anything we receive from Ukraine at face value.&#8221;
Barr added, &#8220;And for that reason, we had established an intake process in the field so that any information coming in about Ukraine could be carefully scrutinized by the department and its intelligence community partners so that we could asses its provenance and its credibility and that is true for all information that comes to the department relating to Ukraine, including anything Mr. Giuliani might provide.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Attorney General Bill Barr confirms to <a href="https://twitter.com/PierreTABC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PierreTABC</a> that the Justice Department is reviewing documents about Joe Biden provided by Rudy Giuliani from Ukraine, but offers a note of caution about the origin of the materials: &quot;We have to be very careful.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/UYkHEiZq8F">https://t.co/UYkHEiZq8F</a> <a href="https://t.co/iYHSDwnaM7">pic.twitter.com/iYHSDwnaM7</a>
&mdash; ABC News (@ABC) <a href="https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1226921165886820355?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 10, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The reporter&#8217;s question was based on remarks that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) made on Sunday during an interview with CBS host Margaret Brennan.
&#8220;Has the Department of Justice been ordered to investigate the Bidens?&#8221; Brennan asked.
&#8220;No,&#8221; Graham responded. &#8220;The Department of Justice is receiving information coming out of the Ukraine from Rudy. &#8230; He told me that they&#8217;ve created a process that Rudy could give information and they would see if it&#8217;s verified. Rudy Giuliani is a well-known man. He&#8217;s a crime fighter. He&#8217;s loyal to the president. He&#8217;s a good lawyer.&#8221;
&#8220;But what I&#8217;m trying to say — to the president and anybody else, that the Russians are still up to it,&#8221; Graham continued. &#8220;Deterrence is not working. So, let&#8217;s look at Hunter Biden&#8217;s conflict. Let&#8217;s look at Joe Biden. Vice President Biden, what did you do when they told you your son was on Burisma&#8217;s board? It undercuts your ability to fight corruption. Did you take it seriously? Obviously he didn&#8217;t.&#8221;
The news comes after Yahoo News reported last week that the U.S. Senate has received “highly sensitive” financial records on Hunter Biden from the U.S. Treasury Department.
“Sens. Charles Grassley, chairman of the Finance Committee; Ron Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee; and Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, have focused their efforts in Washington, seeking to extract politically useful information from agencies of the U.S. government,” Yahoo News <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/treasury-department-sent-information-on-hunter-biden-to-expanding-gop-senate-inquiry-161846826.html">reported</a>. “They’ve issued letters requesting records from Cabinet departments and agencies, including the State Department, the Treasury, the Justice Department, the FBI, the National Archives and the Secret Service.”
“Grassley and Johnson have sought to obtain some of the most sensitive and closely held documents in all of federal law enforcement — highly confidential suspicious activity reports (SARs) filed by financial institutions with FinCEN, an agency of the Treasury that helps to police money laundering,” Yahoo News added. “A source familiar with the matter said the Treasury began turning over materials less than two months after Grassley and Johnson wrote to FinCEN on Nov. 15, 2019, requesting any SARs and related documents filed by financial institutions regarding Hunter Biden, his associates, their businesses and clients.”

Attorney General William Barr Makes Announcement On Cyber-Related Law Enforcement Action

DOJ Has ‘Established An Intake Process’ To Review Biden-Ukraine Info From Giuliani

2020 Election

Democratic Party

Rudy Giuliani

Ukraine

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced federal charges against four Chinese military/intelligence officials for their role in the infamous Equifax data breach scandal of 2017. In one of the greatest data theft operations in global history, hackers in 2017 pilfered from Equifax trade secrets and personal data belonging to up to 150 million Americans.
&#8220;A federal grand jury in Atlanta returned a nine-count indictment last week that accused members of China’s People’s Liberation Army of conspiring to steal reams of data as part of a sophisticated hacking operation that exploited a major vulnerability in the software used by Equifax’s online dispute portal,&#8221; The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/four-members-of-china-s-military-indicted-for-massive-equifax-breach-11581346824">reported</a>. &#8220;The breach into Equifax, disclosed in 2017, compromised data belonging to about 145 million Americans and has been viewed as one of the largest hacks on record. It prompted prolonged public outrage and led to a series of hearings in Congress that led to the resignation of the company’s former chief executive, Richard Smith.&#8221;
Attorney General William Barr was unequivocal in his denunciation of the malign activities: &#8220;This was a deliberate and sweeping intrusion into the private information of the American people,&#8221; Barr said earlier today.
&#8220;The hack was viewed as alarming both because of its size and the richness of the data that was stolen, which included Social Security and driver’s license numbers, addresses, birthdays and other information. The breach began in May 2017 at the latest and continued through July 2017,&#8221; the Journal continued. &#8220;The indictment alleges that the defendants used 34 servers located in nearly 20 countries to infiltrate the company’s network.&#8221;
According to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/10/us-charges-chinese-spies-with-massive-equifax-hack-113129">Politico</a>, the formal charging instrument was a nine-count that charged the Chinese officials with &#8220;wire fraud, economic espionage, conspiracy to commit computer fraud and other offenses.&#8221;
“At the FBI we’ve been saying for years that China will do anything it can to replace the United States as the world’s leading superpower,” FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich said in connection with the formal indictments, as Politico reported. “This indictment is about more than targeting just an American business. It’s about the brazen theft of sensitive personal information of nearly 150 million Americans.”
The revelations of the alleged origins of the Equifax breach come at a time of increasingly escalating tensions between the U.S. and China. In a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-china-americas-greatest-21st-century-threat-josh-hammer">Daily Wire op-ed</a> last May, I described China as America&#8217;s &#8220;greatest 21st century threat&#8221;:
<blockquote>Calling China the number one 21st century geopolitical threat to the United States ought to not be a particularly controversial claim. As far back as 2011, The Economist <a href="https://www.economist.com/node/21527010/all-comments?page=10">noted</a> that, “[w]ith its rapidly improving military capability … China has the wherewithal to challenge the security status quo in the Pacific as well as potential motives to do so.” That trend has only exacerbated in recent years. In January, for instance, the Pentagon expressly <a href="https://wtkr.com/2019/01/16/pentagon-warns-about-rise-in-chinas-military-power/">warned</a> about China’s recent “series of ambitious military reforms and acquired new technology.” In March, the Chinese government assertively <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/04/asia/china-military-xi-jinping-intl/index.html">pronounced</a> an astonishing 7.5% annual rise in military spending — which was actually a mild decrease from the previous year’s military spending increase. Over just the past couple months, China has <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-04-06/djibouti-needed-help-china-had-money-and-now-the-u-s-and-france-are-worried">fortified</a> its military presence in the highly strategic Horn of Africa, and has even made <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/06/pompeo-arctic-china-russia-1302649">expansionist overtures</a> in the Arctic. &#8230;
The upshot is that everywhere from <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/blog/korea-watch/power-problems-china-wants-control-north-korea-conundrum-54057">North Korean denuclearization</a> to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/04/17/why-japan-is-making-a-big-fuss-over-tiny-islands-4-things-to-know/">Senkaku Islands</a> territorial sovereignty dispute in the East China Sea to the deeply combative <a href="https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/enforcement/301Investigations/301%20Report%20Update.pdf">forced technology transfer</a> and <a href="http://ipcommission.org/report/IP_Commission_Report_Update_2017.pdf">intellectual property theft</a> that the Chinese Communist Party claims as an allegedly necessary “cost” of doing business in China, China is a deeply adversarial geopolitical actor. This is a nation with rapidly escalating hard military power, the world’s second largest GDP, a huge landmass, the world’s largest population, ownership of a massive <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-who-owns-a-record-2121-trillion-of-us-debt-2018-08-21">reserve</a> of U.S. sovereign debt, a grossly <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/charleswallace1/2018/07/21/chinas-currency-manipulation-is-a-response-to-trumps-tariffs/">manipulated currency</a>, an aggressive regional foreign policy that seeks to undermine key U.S. allies, a desire to dictate the rules of trade from a hostile, communist perspective, a reflexive urge to publicly shame and embarrass Western corporations into toeing the Chinese Communist Party line on geographical disputes, and an unhinged zealotry in committing acts of cyberwarfare upon and pilfering the intellectual property of sundry Western corporations.</blockquote>
Read the <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/chinese-hackers-charged-in-equifax-breach-021020">FBI&#8217;s full press release from earlier today here</a>.

DOJ Charges Chinese Military Officials In Connection With Infamous Equifax Data Breach

China

cybersecurity

National Security

Federal law enforcement officials arrested a top Harvard scientist on Tuesday for allegedly lying to the U.S. government about his involvement in a massive Chinese program that authorities say is responsible for stealing proprietary information from U.S. institutions.
Authorities arrested Dr. Charles Lieber, 60, chair of the department of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University, on charges of making a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement.
The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/us/charles-lieber-harvard.html">reported</a> that Lieber &#8220;was named a University Professor, Harvard’s highest faculty rank, one of only 26 professors to hold that status,&#8221; and that &#8220;he earned the National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award for inventing syringe-injectable mesh electronics that can integrate with the brain&#8221; in 2017.
&#8220;According to court documents, since 2008, Dr. Lieber who has served as the Principal Investigator of the Lieber Research Group at Harvard University, which specialized in the area of nanoscience, has received more than $15,000,000 in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Department of Defense (DOD),&#8221; The Department of Justice said in a statement. &#8220;These grants require the disclosure of significant foreign financial conflicts of interest, including financial support from foreign governments or foreign entities.&#8221;
&#8220;Unbeknownst to Harvard University beginning in 2011, Lieber became a &#8216;Strategic Scientist&#8217; at Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) in China and was a contractual participant in China’s Thousand Talents Plan from in or about 2012 to 2017,&#8221; the statement said. &#8220;China’s Thousand Talents Plan is one of the most prominent Chinese Talent recruit plans that are designed to attract, recruit, and cultivate high-level scientific talent in furtherance of China’s scientific development, economic prosperity and national security. These talent programs seek to lure Chinese overseas talent and foreign experts to bring their knowledge and experience to China and reward individuals for stealing proprietary information.&#8221;
Prosecutors say that Lieber was paid $50,000 per month and given $150,000 a year for living expenses by China&#8217;s communist government. He was also given $1.5 million to build a laboratory in Wuhan.
&#8220;The complaint alleges that in 2018 and 2019, Lieber lied about his involvement in the Thousand Talents Plan and affiliation with WUT,&#8221; the statement concluded. &#8220;On or about, April 24, 2018, during an interview with investigators, Lieber stated that he was never asked to participate in the Thousand Talents Program, but he &#8216;wasn’t sure&#8217; how China categorized him.  In November 2018, NIH inquired of Harvard whether Lieber had failed to disclose his then-suspected relationship with WUT and China’s Thousand Talents Plan.  Lieber caused Harvard to falsely tell NIH that Lieber &#8216;had no formal association with WUT&#8217; after 2012, that &#8216;WUT continued to falsely exaggerate&#8217; his involvement with WUT in subsequent years, and that Lieber &#8216;is not and has never been a participant in&#8217; China’s Thousand Talents Plan.&#8221;
Federal law enforcement officials have urged American institutions &#8220;to develop protocols for monitoring students and visiting scholars from Chinese state-affiliated research institutions, as U.S. suspicion toward China spreads to academia,&#8221; NPR <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/06/28/728659124/fbi-urges-universities-to-monitor-some-chinese-students-and-scholars-in-the-u-s">reported</a> last year. &#8220;Since last year, FBI officials have visited at least 10 members of the Association of American Universities, a group of 62 research universities, with an unclassified list of Chinese research institutions and companies.&#8221;

A Harvard University logo appears on a sweatshirt on display

Top Harvard Professor Arrested For Lying To Feds About Involvement In Chinese Spy Program, Prosecutors Say

Harvard

Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, who is a constitutional attorney by training, has the following op-ed today at the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-15/william-barr-attorney-general-donald-trump">Los Angeles Times</a>.
Many have been all too quick to make Atty. Gen. William Barr out to be a reflexive toady for President Trump. Just last week, the New York City Bar Association took the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-trumped-up-case-of-bar-v-barr-11578699265?mod=opinion_lead_pos2" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="2">extreme</a> step of <a href="http://documents.nycbar.org/files/Exercising_Congressional_Oversight_AG_Barr_01082020.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="3">writing to congressional leaders</a> to investigate Barr for political bias. And last month, he came under blistering criticism for <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/barr-thinks-fbi-may-have-acted-bad-faith-probing-trump-n1098986" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="4">defending the Trump campaign</a> and characterizing the FBI’s Russia investigation into the 2016 election as bogus.
Slate has <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/12/bill-barr-lying-inspector-general-horowitz-report.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="6">accused</a> Barr of using the Department of Justice as “a personal law firm for Trump.” Vox has <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/12/9/21003334/inspector-general-horowitz-barr-durham" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="7">bewailed</a> “the department’s politicization under Barr.” The Daily Beast has <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/bill-barr-exposed-as-horowitz-report-dismisses-trumps-conspiracies-and-clears-trumps-enemies" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="9">lamented</a> how Barr has “become another of Donald Trump’s personal lawyers.” The New York Times has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/09/us/politics/barr-durham-ig-report-russia-investigation.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="10">noted</a> that the attorney general had “reprised his role as a vocal defender of President Trump.”
Perhaps none of these media outlets recall the time when then-Atty. Gen. Eric Holder famously described himself as President Obama’s “<a href="https://www.politico.com/blogs/politico44/2013/04/eric-holder-im-still-the-presidents-wingman-160861" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="12">wingman</a>.” Curiously, Holder actually took to the Washington Post to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eric-holder-william-barr-is-unfit-to-be-attorney-general/2019/12/11/99882092-1c55-11ea-87f7-f2e91143c60d_story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="13">decry</a> Barr’s ostensible self-debasement as an unfortunate “instrument of politics.”
Holder’s hypocrisy aside, the newfound stance in favor of a strongly independent attorney general among liberals is misguided as a matter of constitutional interpretation and ahistorical as a matter of American custom.
Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 of the Constitution states that “[t]he executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” The power is vested not in numerous sources, but solely in the president. The president maintains plenary authority over the entirety of the executive branch.
The “unitary executive theory,” which Democrats routinely excoriate, comes from the plain text of the Constitution. As Atty. Gen. Barr <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-19th-annual-barbara-k-olson-memorial-lecture" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="18">recently said</a> during his remarks at the Federalist Society’s 2019 National Lawyers Convention, the notion of the unitary executive “is not ‘new,’ and it is not a ‘theory.’” On the contrary, he continued, “[i]t is a description of what the Framers unquestionably did in Article II of the Constitution.”
Throughout American history, attorneys general have intuited and acted upon their non-independent subordination to presidents of the United States. In “<a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-0530-9.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="20">Conflicting Loyalties: Law and Politics in the Attorney General’s Office, 1789–1990</a>,” the scholar Nancy V. Baker explored the historical nature of the attorney general’s position. Baker devoted entire book sections to “The Attorney General as a Legal Adviser” and “The Attorney General as a Policy Advisor.” She observed that “before he became an administrator” of a sprawling Department of Justice bureaucracy, “the attorney general assumed the role of the advisor to the president.” What’s more, the attorney general’s “responsibility” to serve in such an advisory capacity “has antecedents in seventeenth-century England.”
Indeed, the role of the attorney general as a top presidential advisor has been a recurring theme throughout American history. When President Lincoln’s attorney general, Edward Bates, <a href="https://archive.org/stream/suspensionofwrit00unit/suspensionofwrit00unit_djvu.txt" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="22">famously wrote to Congress</a> in 1861 to defend Lincoln’s unilateral suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, he did so not as a neutral arbiter of legal principle, but as Lincoln’s top legal advisor who shared his superior’s ultimate policy aim of a Union victory in the Civil War.
<a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-15/william-barr-attorney-general-donald-trump">Read the rest of the piece here.</a>

RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-america-is-better-off-for-having-bill-barr">America Is Better Off For Having Bill Barr.</a>

Attorney General William Barr

Hammer At The ‘Los Angeles Times’: Attorney General Barr Is Not Simply A Trump Shill.

Constitution

Eric Holder

Law Enforcement

Los Angeles Times

Last month, we at The Daily Wire played a leading role in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-a-group-of-republicans-want-the-government-to-start-fighting-hardcore-pornography-theyre-right-heres-why">instigating</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-first-things-porn-is-not-a-blessing-of-liberty">amplifying</a> a national <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/12/21003109/pornography-obscenity-barr-doj-conservatives-libertarians">debate within the conservative movement</a> about the role of government in combating our online pornography <a href="https://apnews.com/9c91cfd28a7b461b87948f36117a432e">public health crisis</a>. We also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/knowles-the-porn-debate-isnt-really-about-porn">extrapolated</a> that particular debate to a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shapiro-the-problem-with-common-good-conservatism">broader discussion</a> over the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-government-exists-to-establish-justice-not-promote-liberty">fundamental purpose</a> of government.
Now, The Daily Wire has procured an exclusive copy of a letter that is being sent today to Attorney General William Barr from <a href="https://politics.princeton.edu/people/robert-p-george">Robert P. George</a>, the iconic McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the <a href="https://jmp.princeton.edu">James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions</a> at Princeton University. George, who has taught at Princeton since 1985 and has mentored countless influential conservatives such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/us/politics/republican-senate-candidate-in-texas-is-known-as-an-intellectual-force.html">Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)</a>, has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/magazine/20george-t.html">described</a> by The New York Times as &#8220;this country’s most influential conservative Christian thinker.&#8221; He is a longtime social conservative luminary who has consistently taken a <a href="https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/07/5815/">leading role</a> in the <a href="https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/09/10850/">fight</a> against the pernicious dissemination and proliferation of pornography. The <a href="https://americanprinciplesproject.org">American Principles Project</a>, a conservative think tank George helped found, has also taken a <a href="https://americanprinciplesproject.org/petitions/tell-doj-protect-our-kids-from-porn/">leading role</a> in this <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/11/how-to-regulate-pornography">battle</a>.
&#8220;I am writing to request clarification regarding current DOJ policy for the enforcement of existing obscenity laws — specifically 18 U.S.C. § <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1460">1460</a>&#8211;<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1470">1470 </a>— and to inquire whether DOJ considers these statutes applicable to online pornography,&#8221; the letter begins.
&#8220;As everyone knows, the online pornography industry has exploded,&#8221; George writes. &#8220;There has been a dramatic rise in illegal pornography production and distribution. Hotels, cable and TV companies, and Internet pornography distributors regularly sell pornography featuring horrific themes such as the rape of teenagers, incest, sexual assault, sex trafficking and slavery, suffocation, bondage, and even cartoon pornography targeted at minor children. &#8230; A 13-year-old with a smartphone now has unlimited access to his own personal theatre of sexual horrors.&#8221;
&#8220;Extensive evidence demonstrates severe harm caused to children and youth exposed to pornography; increasingly, studies find harm is caused to adults as well,&#8221; the letter continues. &#8220;Recent research indicates that pornography is potentially biologically addictive, which means the user requires more novelty, often in the form of more shocking material, in order to be satisfied.&#8221;
The letter concludes by requesting the Department of Justice (DOJ) for clarification on four items: (1) how DOJ defines &#8220;obscenity&#8221;; (2) what categories of online pornography might fit the definition of &#8220;obscenity&#8221;; (3) whether DOJ believes online pornography is subject to regulation under 18 U.S.C. § 1460-1470; and (4) what efforts DOJ has taken, in this administration, to prosecute violators of extant federal obscenity statutes.
George also spoke with The Daily Wire over phone to elaborate upon why such a missive to the attorney general is urgently needed, at the present time. In addition to the obvious moral and public health aspects, George expanded upon how the issue, for him, has always been intertwined with the fight against human trafficking.
&#8220;The rise of online pornography for children — even young children — has made this issue resurgent again,&#8221; George explained. &#8220;Addiction and sexual addiction connected to pornography has contributed to this. People know about it — people who are married to addicts.&#8221;
&#8220;One additional piece of the puzzle: We have become much more cognizant, over the past decade or two decades, with the way the porn industry has become intertwined with sexual enslavement,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;You put those things together and you can see why the issue has come back — and come back with an urgency. The moral issues remain, but the public health dimensions and our sensitivity to sexual exploitation has increased. And the #MeToo movement has helped here.&#8221;&#8216;
&#8220;Pornography has always been there — at Pompeii, it was on the walls,&#8221; George said. &#8220;But it’s the widespread online dissemination of it &#8230; and [Playboy founder] Hugh Hefner’s mainstream-ing of pornography — treating unclothed women as harmless naughtiness as opposed to something that is a genuine moral issue. The harm Hefner did is incalculable.&#8221;
George explained how the political and legal dynamics of this fight evolved following Hefner&#8217;s 1953 launch of Playboy.
&#8220;What we used to call liberals and what we now call progressives bought into Hefner’s &#8216;harmless naughtiness&#8217; ideology within a decade or so — not everyone, but it became the dominant position. To be liberal came to mean to be hip — to understand sex as a form of recreation rather than what it had been understood in Judeo-Christian culture prior to that.&#8221;
&#8220;The Supreme Court rulings of the liberal justices are a mirror of what was going on in the liberal movement, at the time,&#8221; he expounded. &#8220;Justices William Douglas, William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall — their arguments about pornography were an indicator of the direction that the movement was heading in.&#8221;
To be sure, many doctrinaire libertarians <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/12/porn-is-not-a-blessing-of-liberty">tend to oppose pornography regulation</a> on purported &#8220;free speech&#8221; grounds.
&#8220;Social conservatives need to realize that we can handle pornography and other social ills without turning America into a Christian version of Saudi Arabia,&#8221; Casey Given <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-misguided-war-on-pornography-and-the-return-of-right-wing-puritanism">wrote</a> last month at the Washington Examiner. &#8220;Emboldened conservatives are trying to use the Trump moment to steer the GOP firmly away from its commitments to individual liberty,&#8221; Reason&#8217;s Matt Welch recently <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-03/conservatives-are-coming-for-your-pof">opined</a> at the Los Angeles Times.
George was having none of it.
&#8220;This is not speech of any type; it’s not expressing a viewpoint,&#8221; the Ivy League professor stated. &#8220;Whatever may be going on there, it’s not speech, much less constitutionally protected free speech. The kind of imagery we’re discussing here is not expressing any kind of viewpoint; it’s a pure appeal to a prurient interest. Additionally, it is simply no longer plausible — in fact, it is risible — to suppose that pornography does not cause public harm. &#8230; It is a public health and a public safety and a public morality issue.&#8221;
&#8220;The <a href="https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-baby-and-the-bathwater">goal of government</a> is to protect health, safety, and morals, along with the common good — certainly in conjunction with protecting individual rights,&#8221; George concluded. &#8220;There are social interests here that need to be balanced and I’m usually happy to err on the side of freedom, but for the vast amount of pornography, we’re just not talking about materials that are legally protected.&#8221;
Attorney General Barr has certainly distinguished himself, already, with a willingness to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-america-is-better-off-for-having-bill-barr">call out the profound societal ills</a> of progressive secularism run amok. The ball is now in his court to substantively address one prominent ill via robust enforcement of already on-the-books federal statutes.

Attorney General William Barr And FBI Director Christopher Wray Announce Crime Reduction Initiative In Detroit

EXCLUSIVE: Iconic Conservative Leader Requests AG Barr Address Pornography Epidemic

academia

Conservatism

Free Speech

MeToo

pornography

Princeton University

Sexual Abuse

As has <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/29/how-liberals-are-allowing-anti-semitism-to-flourish/">finally </a>been noticed by the mainstream media, anti-Semitism in America has harrowingly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-hammer-tipping-point-liz-wheeler-why-no-one-daily-wire">been on the rise</a> over the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-york-times-just-made-stunning-admission-about-ben-shapiro">past couple</a> of years. While the first two lethal incidents occurred in synagogues in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-we-cling-tree-life-ben-shapiro">Pittsburgh</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-jews-simply-must-arm-themselves-now-josh-hammer">Southern California</a>, the recent upsurge of violent Jew-hatred has been disproportionately centered around the broader <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/phillips-a-year-of-rampant-anti-semitism-in-new-york-city">New York area</a>. The epidemic reached its bloody December apogee first in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jersey-city-shootout-assailants-kill-police-officer-3-orthodox-jews">Jersey City, New Jersey</a>, and later in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-mass-stabbing-attack-reported-at-new-york-synagogue">Monsey, New York</a>.
Monsey is not terribly far from where I grew up, and has long been home to a sizable Orthodox Jewish community. The town is part of Rockland County, New York, which has the <a href="https://www.ny.gov/counties/rockland">largest Jewish population per capita</a> of any county in the United States.
Alas, despite this, Monsey and some of its surrounding towns in Rockland have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/29/county-gop-ad-saying-jewish-candidate-is-plotting-takeover-is-slammed-anti-semitic/">long been victimized</a> by noxious anti-Semitism. I would know, because <a href="https://firstliberty.org/about-us/">First Liberty Institute</a>, the nation’s largest nonprofit law firm solely dedicated to the protection of religious liberty of all and where I serve in an <a href="https://firstliberty.org/team/josh-hammer/">of counsel</a> capacity, has long been on the frontlines of this particular battle.
Specifically, in Airmont, New York, which directly neighbors Monsey, village officials have deployed discriminatory zoning tactics to prevent an Orthodox Jewish day school — Central UTA of Monsey — from peaceably operating. First Liberty helped <a href="https://firstliberty.org/cases/central-uta/">file a federal lawsuit</a> on behalf of Central UTA; for that matter, we have also helped file a <a href="https://firstliberty.org/cases/airmont/">similar lawsuit</a> on behalf of several individual Orthodox Jewish residents of Airmont. Overall, for decades now, the village of Airmont has systemically discriminated against the Orthodox community living there. Local officials in the Airmont/Monsey area of Rockland County have brazenly and shamelessly attempted to prevent their Orthodox Jewish population from actually practicing Judaism.
But the connection hits even closer to home. In our capacity representing the Central UTA Jewish day school, we at First Liberty directly represent school administrator Rabbi Moshe Rottenberg, who is the cousin of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg — the very <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/nyregion/monsey-synagogue-stabbing-anti-semitic.html">owner of the home</a> that was infamously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-mass-stabbing-attack-reported-at-new-york-synagogue">machete-attacked</a> last month toward the end of Chanukah.
Small world indeed.
To date, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has not officially taken action in the Central UTA case besides collect relevant information. To DOJ&#8217;s great credit, however, it did file an official &#8220;Statement of Interest&#8221; in our other Airmont case, regarding oppressive and discriminatory zoning laws. The United States &#8220;wishes to refute any suggestion &#8230; that the United States has previously provided its imprimatur to or otherwise endorsed the legality of&#8221; Airmont&#8217;s discriminatory zoning ordinances, DOJ wrote in a filing from this past September. The United States &#8220;believes that it is important &#8230; for the [district court] to have a full understanding of the troubled history of Airmont’s zoning code, its impact on Hasidic residents, and the numerous legal actions against [Airmont] that have been necessary in the past,&#8221; the DOJ filing continued.
Good for Attorney General <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-america-is-better-off-for-having-bill-barr">Bill Barr</a> and for DOJ. In <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/phillips-a-year-of-rampant-anti-semitism-in-new-york-city">sharp contrast</a> to the blithe aloofness of both New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Barr has taken official action to convey his interest in the rampant anti-Semitism occurring in Rockland County, New York.
For the Central UTA litigation, we are currently awaiting the trial judge to rule on a handful of motions. But as someone serving in an of counsel capacity at a law firm representing the cousin of the homeowner of the house that was brutally machete-attacked barely over a week ago, I can personally attest to one thing: Jew-hatred in heavily Jewish Rockland County, New York is hardly new. The only thing that is new is the mainstream media attention such anti-Semitism has suddenly been receiving — and, perhaps, whether local and statewide politicians might decisively act to stop this bigotry.

Police Jews Monsey

HAMMER: Anti-Semitism Around Monsey, New York Is Not New. Here’s How I Know.

Andrew Cuomo

Anti-Semitism

Bill de Blasio

Discrimination

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On Thursday, Washington Post Media Critic Erik Wemple <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/12/26/rachel-maddow-rooted-steele-dossier-be-true-then-it-fell-apart/">slammed</a> far-left MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, claiming that she &#8220;seemed to be rooting&#8221; for the veracity of the now-infamous Steele Dossier before the document&#8217;s credibility ultimately &#8220;fell apart.&#8221;
&#8220;Name a host on cable news who has dug more deeply into Trump-Russia than MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow,&#8221; Wemple wrote. &#8220;She’s read hundreds, maybe thousands, of court filings; she’s read the plume of literature on Russia-Trump; and she’s out with a new book on the bane of petro-states: &#8216;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0525575472/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=slatmaga-20&amp;creative=9325&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;creativeASIN=0525575472&amp;linkId=2a858da9155bc9edba3471d6ec9df3bb" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="36">Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth</a>.'&#8221;
Wemple, entering the realm of full-on snark, then excoriated Maddow&#8217;s self-obsessed &#8220;Russianist phase.&#8221;
&#8220;As part of her Russianist phase, Maddow became a clearinghouse for news increments regarding the dossier,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Just days after BuzzFeed published the dossier in its entirety, she reported on the frustration of congressional Democrats with then-FBI Director James B. Comey, who was declining to divulge whether his people had opened an investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the 2016 Trump presidential campaign.&#8221;
Wemple systematically walked the reader through a timeline of Maddow&#8217;s on-air reporting from 2017–2018, during which Maddow repeatedly glommed onto snippets of left-leaning reporting to tendentiously give off the impression to MSNBC viewers that the dossier was something other than the salacious rumormongering that Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General has since confirmed it indeed was.
Wemple continued to describe the release of former DOJ Special Counsel Robert Mueller&#8217;s eponymous report on 2016 Russian electoral interference as a &#8220;kick in the derrière&#8221; for those who were invested in the Steeler dossier&#8217;s overarching narrative of nefarious Trump-Russia collusion.
&#8220;The release of the Mueller report in April provided a kick in the derriere for backers of the dossier. 
Wemple wrote. &#8220;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/24/what-steele-dossier-said-vs-what-mueller-report-said/?tid=lk_inline_manual_40" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="116">As Glenn Kessler pointed out in The Post</a>, the central allegation of the dossier — an &#8216;extensive conspiracy between campaign team and Kremlin, sanctioned at highest levels and involving Russian diplomatic staff based in the U.S.&#8217; as well as an &#8216;agreed exchange of information established in both directions&#8217; — found no corroboration from Mueller’s investigation, even though the special counsel’s team was charged with probing just this matter.&#8221;
But Maddow didn&#8217;t seem to care for the Mueller&#8217;s report dismissal of the dossier, Wemple opined.
&#8220;Several days after the Mueller report emerged, Maddow addressed not the dissonance between Mueller and the dossier, but a point of possible corroboration,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;In perhaps its most famous allegation, the dossier claimed that Trump had rented a suite at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow and &#8217;employed&#8217; prostitutes to perform a perverted ritual for him. It suggested that there were tapes of the show, the better to amass kompromat against Trump. A <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Muelller-Report-Redacted-Vol-II-Released-04.18.2019-Word-Searchable.-Reduced-Size.pdf#page=32" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="130">footnote</a> in the Mueller report, noted Maddow, bore a possible connection to this part of the dossier.&#8221;
Wemple concluded by comparing the relative merits of the &#8220;case for Maddow&#8221; and the &#8220;case against Maddow,&#8221; and concluding that the latter is &#8220;far stronger.&#8221;
&#8220;The case against Maddow is far stronger,&#8221; Wemple stated. &#8220;When small bits of news arose in favor of the dossier, the franchise MSNBC host pumped air into them. At least some of her many fans surely came away from her broadcasts thinking the dossier was a serious piece of investigative research, not the flimflam, quick-twitch game of telephone outlined in the Horowitz report. She seemed to be rooting for the document.&#8221;
Ouch.

Rachel Maddow

Washington Post Media Critic Blasts Rachel Maddow Over Steele Dossier

2016 election

Leftism

Media

Michael Horowitz

Progressivism

Russia

The Department of Justice said this month that it could not release records on Democrat technology aide Imran Awan due to &#8220;technical difficulties,” but later admitted in court documents that it could not release records on him because there is a secret ongoing case related to the matter.
&#8220;Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit Nov. 7, 2018, for 7,000 pages of Capitol Police records related to the cybersecurity investigation, and Aug. 2, the DOJ agreed to begin producing records by Nov. 5,&#8221; Daily Caller News Foundation investigative reporter Luke Rosiak <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2019/12/13/doj-imran-awan-records/">reported</a>. &#8220;That deadline came and went with no records being produced; on a Nov. 13 phone call, the DOJ said ‘technical difficulties’ had resulted in a delay, Judicial Watch stated in a court filing.&#8221;
In a newly released court filing, the Department of Justice <a href="https://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/JW-v-DOJ-Awan-Status-Report-02563.pdf">wrote</a>:
<blockquote>Pursuant to an Order issued by the Honorable Tanya S. Chutkan, who is presiding over a related sealed criminal matter the Government is prohibited from disclosing certain information pursuant to formal and informal information request in this matter. The Government advised Judge Chutkan of the instant FOIA matter and sought clarification from Judge Chutkan concerning the Government’s permissible response in light of her Order in the sealed matter. Defendant received the clarification December 5, 2019, the date of this filing, that permitted Defendant to say the following: The Government is prohibited from disclosing any information pursuant to an Order issued by the Honorable Tanya S. Chutkan. &#8230;
&#8230;The “difficulties” in providing responsive material was due to the unexpected and unique set of facts described above that was out of the control of the Defendant. Defendant’s only motivation was to maintain the integrity of the sealed matter as much as possible, until the issuing Court provided guidance.</blockquote>
The DCNF noted that the DOJ had said it closed the investigation into Awan in 2018 in which Awan entered a plea deal where he pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud.
After the DOJ closed the case, President Donald Trump weighed in on the matter, tweeting, &#8220;Our Justice Department must not let Awan &amp; Debbie Wasserman Schultz off the hook. The Democrat I.T. scandal is a key to much of the corruption we see today. They want to make a &#8216;plea deal&#8217; to hide what is on their Server. Where is Server? Really bad!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Our Justice Department must not let Awan &amp; Debbie Wasserman Schultz off the hook. The Democrat I.T. scandal is a key to much of the corruption we see today. They want to make a “plea deal” to hide what is on their Server. Where is Server? Really bad!
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1004726490058182656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 7, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
U.S. Attorney Benton Peterson told U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta, who is presiding over the FOIA lawsuit that was filed by Judicial Watch, that DOJ was set to release a &#8220;cache of documents,&#8221; but that he was informed of a &#8220;sealing order&#8221; in the case and that he &#8220;couldn&#8217;t discuss the sealing order.&#8221;
Mehta reportedly responded by acknowledging that “typically when criminal cases have concluded, the materials become public and I don’t know whether there’s any relationship between the judge’s order and that case … The seal Judge Chutkan has ordered, is that itself sealed?”
“That’s under seal as well,” Peterson responded.
&#8220;Court records that have since been erased suggest that far from prosecuting the Awans for new crimes, the &#8216;sealed&#8217; matter might be because Chutkan agreed to essentially expunge records related to Awan’s wife Hina Alvi — a request that was strongly opposed by the DOJ itself as unfounded and extraordinary,&#8221; The DCNF added. &#8220;Sometime in the past few months – as the FOIA lawsuit heated up – Chutkan appears to have belatedly granted the proposed seal or something similar. The proposed motion to seal and the government’s opposition are apparently gone from the court docket, and Alvi’s name has been removed – though all 80 documents pertaining to the Imran Awan case remain.&#8221;
Rosiak, who garnered significant national attention for his reporting on the Awan case at the DCNF, wrote in a separate <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2018/04/20/ig-pakistani-mystery-man-imran-awan/">report</a> a list of things to know about Awan. Here are some of the key points:
<ul>
<li>
<blockquote>During the 2016 election, the House’s Office of Inspector General warned that Imran and his family were making “unauthorized access” to data</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>Shortly after the IG report came out in September 2016, the Caucus server – identified as prime evidence in the cybersecurity case – physically disappeared</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>Wasserman Schultz declined to fire Imran despite knowing he was suspected of cyber-security violations, even though she had just lost her job as DNC chair after its anemic handling of its data breach</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>After Imran was banned from the network, he left a laptop with the username RepDWS in a phone booth</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>A former business partner of Imran’s father says the father handed over USBs of data to a Pakistani official and that Imran claimed he [had] power to ‘change the U.S. president’</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>The cybersecurity investigation started after allegedly falsified invoices caught administrators’ attention, and the Awans’ lawyers blamed members</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
Read Rosiak&#8217;s full report <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2018/04/20/ig-pakistani-mystery-man-imran-awan/">here</a>.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Imran Awan

Scandal Reopens? Court Papers On Democrat IT Aide Imran Awan Make New Revelation

Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Imran Awan

On Wednesday, speaking at Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s hearing, Senator Ted Cruz attacked the Obama administration for its supposed ignorance of the actions of the FBI and DOJ that targeted the 2016 Trump campaign, snapping, “This wasn’t Jason Bourne. This was Beavis and Butt-Head.”
Cruz began, “Reading this report— this is a 434 page report — that lays out what I consider to be a stunning indictment of the FBI and the Department of Justice of a pattern of abuse of power. And I will say both the Department of Justice and the FBI, for decades, have had a great many honorable principled professionals with a fidelity to rule of law. And this indictment – I’m an alumnus of the Department of Justice — this pattern of facts makes me angry, and it makes anyone who expects law enforcement to be non-partisan and faithful to the law, it should make them angry as well.”
He continued, “Now the press has focused on your specific conclusion that you did not find evidence of political bias. That’s a judgment you have; I disagree with that judgment. But I think that judgment is, in many ways, the least significant component of this report. I think the facts that are in this report need to be understood and they should be deeply chilling to anyone who understands the facts in this report, and then people can draw the inference as to why that pattern of abuse occurred.”
Horowitz, asked if he agreed that the facts should be made known to the public, said he did.
Cruz continued, “So this 434-page report, outlines 17 major errors and misstatements that were made by the FBI or DOJ in securing FISA warrants. A number of them are deeply, deeply troubling. These are not typos; these are not small inadvertent errors; these are grotesque abuses of power. Let’s focus on a couple of them.&#8221;
Cruz stated:
<blockquote>The primary subsource: the primary subsource, and indeed the first error you note in the second, third, and fourth application for the FISA warrant is that the primary subsource reporting raised serious questions about the accuracy of the Steele dossier, which we now know was a bunch of malarkey, to use a term that’s been in the news lately, and that the FISA court was not informed of that. Now let’s get specific: so the basis of this Steele report was what’s referred to in your report as the primary subsource. That was the principal basis, and the FBI interviewed that primary subsource not once, not twice, but three times, in January, March and May of 2017. What did the primary subsource say? As the OIG reports, the interviews with the primary subsource raised “significant questions about the reliability of the Steel reporting.”  What did the subsource say specifically, as your report goes on to say? It says, “Steele misstated or exaggerated multiple sections of the reporting.”</blockquote>
After Cruz delineated the extent of the misstatements and exaggerations, Cruz continued, “The FBI had that information; knew that the basis of this dossier was saying it’s unreliable, and what did the FBI and DOJ do? … The FBI advised the court, &#8216;The FBI found the Russian-based subsource to be truthful and cooperative&#8217; with zero revisions.&#8221;
Cruz added that the second error was omitting Carter Page’s association with U.S. intelligence, pointing out that Page’s talking to Russians made sense from that perspective.
Cruz spoke of the fact that the DNC funded the opposition research done by Fusion GPS and the fact that the FISA court was not informed of that fact by the FBI or DOJ.
Cruz slammed the Obama Administration for its supposed ignorance of what was going on:
<blockquote>I can tell you from my time at the Department of Justice and from my time in law enforcement, any responsible leader when hearing that you’re talking about sending in spies and sending in a wiretap on any presidential nominee should say, &#8220;What in the hell are we doing?&#8221; And by the way, the people up the chain who are saying &#8220;We didn’t know,&#8221; if you had responsible leadership there’s no more important decision than you make.
I can tell you, when I was at DOJ, if someone said let’s tap Hillary Clinton or let’s tap Bill Clinton or John Kerry, the people there would have said, &#8220;What in the hell are you talking about?&#8221; What was going on here, this wasn’t Jason Bourne. This was Beavis and Butt-Head.
<iframe src="https://www.c-span.org/video/standalone/?c4838024/user-clip-cruz" width="512" height="330" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></blockquote>

Justice Dept Inspector General Michael Horowitz Testifies Before Senate Judiciary Committee On FISA Report

WATCH: Cruz Blisters Obama Administration For Ignorance Of FBI Targeting Trump: ‘This Wasn’t Jason Bourne. This Was Beavis and Butt-Head.’

Barack Obama

Ted Cruz

Justice Department Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz confirmed during his testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that the FBI used fraudulent evidence that it created as the basis for a sworn statement to the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that it used to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act application to surveil the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election.
&#8220;A lawyer at the FBI creates fraudulent evidence, alters an email that is in turn used as the basis for a sworn statement to the court that the court relies on,&#8221; Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said. &#8220;Am I stating that accurately?&#8221;
&#8220;That&#8217;s correct,&#8221; Horowitz confirmed. &#8220;That&#8217;s what occurred.&#8221;
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This exchange. Staggering.
Cruz: “A lawyer at the FBI creates fraudulent evidence, alters an email that is in turn used as the basis for a sworn statement to the court that the court relies on. Am I stating that accurately?&quot;
Horowitz: &quot;That&#39;s correct. That&#39;s what occurred&quot; <a href="https://t.co/pnsp7gssT1">pic.twitter.com/pnsp7gssT1</a>
&mdash; Mark Meadows (@RepMarkMeadows) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepMarkMeadows/status/1204847596017205249?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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The IG report found: &#8220;In an email from the liaison to the OGC Attorney, the liaison provided written guidance, including that it was the liaison’s recollection that Page had a relationship with the other agency, and directed the OGC Attorney to review the information that the other agency had provided to the FBI in August 2016. As noted above, that August 2016 information stated that Page did, in fact, have a prior relationship with that other agency. However, the OGC Attorney altered the liaison’s email by inserting the words &#8216;not a source&#8217; into it, thus making it appear that the liaison had said that Page was “not a source”; the OGC Attorney then sent the altered email to SSA 2. Relying upon this altered email, SSA 2 signed the third renewal application (that again failed to disclose Page’s past relationship with the other agency).&#8221;
Earlier during the hearing, Horowitz essentially implied to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham that what the FBI did was tantamount to &#8220;illegal surveillance.&#8221;
Here&#8217;s the interaction between Graham and Horowitz:
<blockquote>Graham: Let&#8217;s play this out. They never told Trump about the concerns, is it fair to say there came a point to where surveilling Carter Page became unlawful?
Horowitz: I will let the court decide that. The court has this report and will make that decision.
Graham: Let&#8217;s put it this way, if you don&#8217;t have a legal foundation to surveil somebody and you keep doing it, is that bad?
Horowitz: Absolutely.
Graham: Is that spying?
Horowitz: &#8216;It&#8217;s illegal surveillance, it&#8217;s not court authorized surveillance.
Graham: What ever illegal surveillance means, they did it. &#8230; They had no legal basis after the January 2017 data dump by the Russian guy to believe that the dossier was reliable. They alter exculpatory information in June of 2017 that would have further proven that Carter Page is not a Russian agent and he was actually working with the CIA.</blockquote>
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Sen. Lindsey Graham on FBI surveilling the Trump campaign: “Let’s put it this way, if you don’t have a legal foundation to surveil somebody and you keep doing it is that bad?”
IG Michael Horowitz: “Absolutely.”
Graham: ”Is that spying?”
Horowitz: “It’s illegal surveillance.” <a href="https://t.co/cYLZ3JjMJ3">pic.twitter.com/cYLZ3JjMJ3</a>
&mdash; Steven Cheung (@CaliforniaPanda) <a href="https://twitter.com/CaliforniaPanda/status/1204807961136246792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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On Tuesday, Attorney General William Barr <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/barr-reveals-suspicious-action-taken-by-comey-blasts-fbi-for-shady-actions-with-anti-trump-dossier">told</a> NBC News that &#8220;in January, after the election, the entire case collapsed when the principal source says ‘I never told — I never told Steele this stuff and this was also speculation and I have zero information to support this stuff.’ At that point, when their entire case collapsed, what do they do? They kept on investigating the president well into his administration, after the case collapsed.&#8221;
Barr continued, &#8220;But here to me is the damning thing: They not only didn’t tell the court that what they had been relying on was completely, you know, rubbish, they actually started putting in things to bolster this Steele report by saying, ‘we talked to the sources and they appeared to be truthful,’ but they don’t inform the court that what they’re truthful about is that the dossier is false.&#8221;

Horowitz: FBI Created ‘Fraudulent Evidence’ In Investigation, Implies ‘Illegal Surveillance’

Surveillance

Left-leaning CNN was slammed on Wednesday for refusing to air the opening statements of the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman and ranking member before Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz&#8217;s testimony on the FBI&#8217;s misconduct in surveilling the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election.
Republican National Committee (RNC) Rapid Response Director Steve Guest highlighted CNN&#8217;s actions by noting that CNN covered the entirety of all of the Democrats&#8217; impeachment hearings over the past several weeks.
RNC Chairman Ronna McDaniel slammed CNN for its bias, tweeting: &#8220;CNN aired everything Schiff &amp; Nadler had to say. Why aren’t they showing [Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)]? Is it because the facts of how the FBI mistreated [President Trump] contradict[s] their coverage over the last 3 years?
&#8220;Anxiously awaiting an explanation from [CNN] about their bias here,&#8221; McDaniel added.
President Donald Trump responded by tweeting: &#8220;The News Media in our Country is FAKE and in many cases, totally CORRUPT!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The News Media in our Country is FAKE and in many cases, totally CORRUPT! <a href="https://t.co/hj9plf0GMC">https://t.co/hj9plf0GMC</a>
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1204839933430644736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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In a statement to The Daily Wire, the Trump campaign said:
<blockquote>Vladimir Putin has the Internet Research Agency to spread hoaxes and misinformation. The Democrat Party has CNN. After airing every last second of Democrats’ opening statements plus Democrat staffers talking to each other throughout six extremely boring impeachment hearings, CNN refused to air Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham&#8217;s opening statement in the hearing on the IG report today. Instead of informing viewers of the incredibly damning facts regarding the Obama-Biden FBI&#8217;s spying on the Trump Campaign in furtherance of the Russia Collusion Hoax that CNN spread for years, CNN turned to the same ‘experts’ who spread the hoax for their takes on the IG report. They also broadcast segments on impeachment, airplane safety, and a low-profile murder case. The IG report confirms that the FBI falsified evidence and lied to the FISA court in order to spy on the Trump campaign while burying real evidence that undermined the Russia Collusion Hoax, which CNN played an active role in spreading. No wonder they weren’t eager to let their viewers know the truth. This is Putin-style propaganda at its finest!</blockquote>
CNN eventually did switch its coverage to the hearing after Horowitz began to give his testimony to the Senate, but the damage had already been done, as numerous prominent figures noted CNN&#8217;s questionable decision to not air the full hearing.
Ari Fleischer tweeted: &#8220;CNN is not taking the Senate Horowitz hearing live. Unbelievable. A perfect example of how bias works. It’s not just what they cover. It’s what they don’t cover. CNN, after covering weeks of opening statements by Adam Schiff (D) and Jerry Nadler (D), doesn’t cover the opening statement of Lindsey Graham (R) at the Horowitz hearing. I can’t figure out what the difference is. Unless it has something to do with the item in parentheses.&#8221;
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CNN, after covering weeks of opening statements by Adam Schiff (D) and Jerry Nadler (D), doesn’t cover the opening statement of Lindsey Graham (R) at the Horowitz hearing. I can’t figure out what the difference is. Unless it has something to do with the item in parentheses.
&mdash; Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) <a href="https://twitter.com/AriFleischer/status/1204801569578991616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Federalist co-founder Sean Davis responded to Fleischer’s tweet, writing: “CNN was an active participant in the hoax. Comey/Clapper used CNN to take the hoax public. CNN&#8217;s own contributors are being criminally investigated for their actions perpetrating the hoax. Accountability is an existential threat to CNN.”
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CNN was an active participant in the hoax. Comey/Clapper used CNN to take the hoax public. CNN&#39;s own contributors are being criminally investigated for their actions perpetrating the hoax. Accountability is an existential threat to CNN. <a href="https://t.co/wFUQc4tJM4">https://t.co/wFUQc4tJM4</a>
&mdash; Sean Davis (@seanmdav) <a href="https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1204785749524131843?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Devin Nunes responded to Davis, writing: “They are too busy looking for me and my staff in VIENNA&#8230; @CNN needs to be reigned in by @ATT &#8230; Are there any adults left on the board of @ATT ?  #goodnightVienna”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
They are too busy looking for me and my staff in VIENNA&#8230; <a href="https://twitter.com/CNN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CNN</a> needs to be reigned in by <a href="https://twitter.com/ATT?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ATT</a> &#8230; Are there any adults left on the board of <a href="https://twitter.com/ATT?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ATT</a> ? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/goodnightVienna?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#goodnightVienna</a> <a href="https://t.co/PXXvV6VEBp">https://t.co/PXXvV6VEBp</a>
&mdash; Devin Nunes (@DevinNunes) <a href="https://twitter.com/DevinNunes/status/1204788328769499137?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Washington Post media reporter Erik Wemple tweeted: &#8220;Fox News, MSNBC are broadcasting the Horowitz hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, while CNN is doing other stuff.&#8221;
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Fox News, MSNBC are broadcasting the Horowitz hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, while CNN is doing other stuff.
&mdash; ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) <a href="https://twitter.com/ErikWemple/status/1204834356000428033?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Wemple later added: &#8220;Strange that CNN is doing a panel right now on Horowitz while the other main cable news networks are carrying live his own testimony on Capitol Hill.&#8221;
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Strange that CNN is doing a panel right now on Horowitz while the other main cable news networks are carrying live his own testimony on Capitol Hill.
&mdash; ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) <a href="https://twitter.com/ErikWemple/status/1204842346627698688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Townhall Political Editor Guy Benson tweeted: &#8220;Currently — Fox: IG hearing MSNBC: IG hearing CNN: Anonymous sources claim POTUS is ‘privately agitated’ by impeachment.&#8221;
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Currently — 
Fox: IG hearing
MSNBC: IG hearing
CNN: Anonymous sources claim POTUS is ‘privately agitated’ by impeachment.
&mdash; Guy Benson (@guypbenson) <a href="https://twitter.com/guypbenson/status/1204826228970196992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Fox News host Howard Kurtz tweeted: &#8220;Major misstep by CNN, after blanketing Democratic hearings, to blow off Lindsey Graham&#8217;s opening statement (and Feinstein&#8217;s) at IG hearing. And MSNBC dipped in and out of Graham. Fuels the criticism that they&#8217;ve taken sides.&#8221;
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Major misstep by CNN, after blanketing Democratic hearings, to blow off Lindsey Graham&#39;s opening statement (and Feinstein&#39;s) at IG hearing. And MSNBC dipped in and out of Graham. Fuels the criticism that they&#39;ve taken sides
&mdash; HowardKurtz (@HowardKurtz) <a href="https://twitter.com/HowardKurtz/status/1204811580828999682?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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NewsBusters Managing Editor Curtis Houck tweeted: &#8220;[CNN] and @BrookeBCNN bail out of #HorowitzIGReport hearing to trot out liberal former assistant U.S. Attorney @ElieHonig and former Comey flack @JoshSCampbell to &#8216;fact-check&#8217; the Republicans, decrying partisanship (even though they only attack the GOP).&#8221;
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Video: <a href="https://twitter.com/CNN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CNN</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/BrookeBCNN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BrookeBCNN</a> bail out of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HorowitzIGReport?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HorowitzIGReport</a> hearing to trot out liberal former assistant U.S. Attorney <a href="https://twitter.com/eliehonig?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ElieHonig</a> and former Comey flack <a href="https://twitter.com/joshscampbell?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JoshSCampbell</a> to &quot;fact-check&quot; the Republicans, decrying partisanship (even though they only attack the GOP) <a href="https://t.co/BERAsw2EnX">pic.twitter.com/BERAsw2EnX</a>
&mdash; Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) <a href="https://twitter.com/CurtisHouck/status/1204843428317745154?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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CNN Grilled For Refusing To Cover Opening Statements In Horowitz Testimony: ‘This Is Putin-Style Propaganda At Its Finest!’

Justice Department Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz debunked on Wednesday former FBI Director James Comey&#8217;s suggestion this week that the IG&#8217;s report exonerated the FBI from misconduct allegations over its surveillance of the Trump campaign in 2016.
Following the release of the IG report this week, Comey wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post and tweeted a link to it, writing on Twitter: &#8220;So it was all lies. No treason. No spying on the campaign. No tapping Trumps wires. It was just good people trying to protect America.&#8221;
In the op-ed, Comey claimed that &#8220;the allegation of a criminal conspiracy was nonsense. There was no illegal wiretapping, there were no informants inserted into the campaign, there was no &#8216;spying&#8217; on the Trump campaign.&#8221;
On Wednesday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham asked Horowitz: &#8220;The former FBI Director James Comey said this week that your report vindicates him. Is that a fair assessment of your report?&#8221;
Horowitz responded: &#8220;I think the activities we found here don’t vindicate anybody who touched this FISA.”
The inspector general&#8217;s report found that the FBI identified Steele&#8217;s primary sub-source in January 2017 and arranged a meeting with the individual, whose identity has not been disclosed. The <a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf">report</a> found:
<blockquote>The Primary Sub-source told the FBI that he/she had not seen Steele&#8217;s reports until they became public that month, and that he/she made statements indicating that Steele misstated or exaggerated the Primary Sub-source&#8217;s statements in multiple sections of the reporting. &#8230;
The Primary Sub-source was questioned again by the FBI beginning in March 2017 about the election reporting and his/her communications with Steele. The Washington Field Office agent (WFO Agent 1) who conducted that interview and others after it told the OIG that the Primary Sub-source felt that the tenor of Steele&#8217;s reports was far more &#8220;conclusive&#8221; than was justified. The Primary Subsource also stated that he/she never expected Steele to put the Primary Subsource&#8217;s statements in reports or present them as facts. According to WFO Agent 1, the Primary Sub-source said he/she made it clear to Steele that he/she had no proof to support the statements from his/her sub-sources and that &#8220;it was just talk.&#8221;</blockquote>
Graham then read an exchange that Comey had with a reporter in December 2018:
<blockquote>Reporter: Can I ask you a question on FISA abuse? It’s a major issue for the Republicans. Do you have total confidence in the dossier when you used it to secure a surveillance warrant and also in the subsequent renewals?
Comey: I have total confidence that the FISA process was followed, that the entire case was handled in a thoughtful, responsible way by DOJ and the FBI. I think the notion that FISA was abused here is nonsense.</blockquote>
Graham asked Horowitz: “Would it be fair to say that you take issue with that statement?”
Horowitz responded: “Certainly our findings were that there were significant problems with FISA.&#8221;
Horowitz later highlighted how the officials who were investigating the Trump campaign misled the FISA court by saying that the primary sub-source for the anti-Trump dossier created by former British spy Christopher Steele was credible but did not tell the court that the source refuted the claims in the Steele dossier.
&#8220;I would not have submitted the [FISA application] they put it,&#8221; Horowitz said. &#8220;No doubt about it. It had no business going in.&#8221;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t think the Department of Justice fairly treated these FISAs and [Trump campaign adviser Carter Page] was on the receiving end of the FISAs,&#8221; Horowitz continued.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
HOROWITZ ON COMEY:
“The activities we found here don’t vindicate anybody who touched this” <a href="https://t.co/rdfo1hcli0">pic.twitter.com/rdfo1hcli0</a>
&mdash; Benny (@bennyjohnson) <a href="https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1204812277725192193?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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This report has been updated to include additional information.

James Comey Michael Horowitz

Inspector General Horowitz Debunks Comey Suggesting Exoneration: ‘Activities We Found Here Don’t Vindicate Anybody Who Touched This FISA’

James Comey

Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz&#8217;s report on alleged FBI misconduct in surveilling the Trump campaign found that the FBI &#8220;altered&#8221; evidence that falsely cast former Trump presidential campaign adviser Carter Page as a Russian spy.
The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis and Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2019/12/09/ig-report-fbi-doctored-evidence-to-falsely-paint-carter-page-as-russian-spy/">wrote</a> that the report &#8220;found that the FBI falsely claimed to the FISA Court not only that Carter Page was a Russian agent, but also falsely claimed that an unnamed intelligence agency had told the FBI that Page was &#8216;not a source&#8217; in their efforts to surveil and curtail Russian intelligence efforts.&#8221;
&#8220;Page, who had previously been an informant and witness for the United States in a federal espionage case against a Russian intelligence official, was targeted by the Obama FBI as a Russian spy helping Putin to steal the election from Hillary Clinton in 2016,&#8221; The Federalist reported. &#8220;According to the IG report, before the FBI and DOJ went to the FISA Court to apply for a warrant to spy on Page, an unnamed U.S. intelligence agency had told the FBI that Carter Page had previously assisted that agency’s efforts against Russian spies. Although exculpatory information about potential spy targets is required in spy warrant applications, Obama’s FBI and DOJ deliberately withheld that information from the spy court in order to paint Page in the worst possible light.&#8221;
&#8220;Ahead of an application to renew the spy warrant in 2017, a top FBI lawyer doctored evidence from the unnamed agency which confirmed that contrary to FBI claims that he was a Russian spy, Page had in fact assisted the United States in its efforts to counter Russian operations,&#8221; The Federalist added. &#8220;An e-mail from the agency that clearly stated Page was &#8216;a source&#8217; for them was doctored by Kevin Clinesmith, a top FBI national security lawyer, to give the opposite impression to the federal spy court.&#8221;
The inspector general&#8217;s <a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf">report</a> found [emphasis added]:
<blockquote>The renewal applications also continued to fail to include information regarding Carter Page&#8217;s relationship with another U.S. government agency and information Page had shared with the other agency about his contacts with Russian intelligence officers, even after the Crossfire Hurricane team re-engaged with the other U.S. government agency in June 2017.
As described in Chapter Eight, following interviews that Page gave to news outlets in April and May 2017 stating that he had assisted the U.S. intelligence community in the past, one of the SSAs supervising Crossfire Hurricane sought additional information about the issue. SSA 2, who was to be the affiant for Renewal Application No. 3 and had been the affiant for the first two renewals, told us that he wanted a definitive answer to whether Page had ever been a source for another U.S. government agency before he signed the final renewal application, because he was concerned that Page could claim that he had been acting on behalf of the U.S. government when engaging with certain Russians.
This led to interactions between the OGC Attorney assigned to Crossfire Hurricane and a liaison from the other U.S. government agency. In an email from the liaison to the OGC Attorney, the liaison provided written guidance, including that it was the liaison&#8217;s recollection that Page had a relationship with the other agency, and directed the OGC Attorney to review the information that the other agency had provided to the FBI in August 2016. As noted above, that August 2016 information stated that Page did, in fact, have a prior relationship with that other agency. However, the OGC Attorney altered the liaison&#8217;s email by inserting the words &#8220;not a source&#8221; into it, thus making it appear that the liaison had said that Page was &#8220;not a source&#8221;; the OGC Attorney then sent the altered email to SSA 2. 
Relying upon this altered email, SSA 2 signed the third renewal application (that again failed to disclose Page&#8217;s past relationship with the other agency). Consistent with the Inspector General Act of 1978, following the OIG&#8217;s discovery that the OGC Attorney had altered and sent the email to SSA 2, who thereafter relied on it to swear out the final FISA application, the OIG promptly informed the Attorney General and the FBI Director and provided them with the relevant information about the OGC Attorney&#8217;s actions.
None of these inaccuracies and omissions that we identified in the renewal applications were brought to the attention of OI before the applications were filed. As a result, similar to the first application, the Department officials who reviewed one or more of the renewal applications, including Yates, Boente, and Rosenstein, did not have accurate and complete information at the time they approved them.</blockquote>
The IG report found that the FBI made 17 &#8220;serious&#8221; errors in getting a FISA application on Carter Page and said that the FBI &#8220;fell far short&#8221; in correctly doing its job. The Daily Wire has already <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ig-report-here-are-the-17-specific-inaccuracies-and-omissions-in-the-fbis-fisa-warrants-against-carter-page">separately reported</a> on these specific 17 errors.
The report stated that investigators were &#8220;deeply concerned that so many basic and fundamental errors were made by three separate, hand-picked investigative teams; on one of the most sensitive FBI investigations; after the matter had been briefed to the highest levels within the FBI; even though the information sought through use of FISA authority related so closely to an ongoing presidential campaign; and even though those involved with the investigation knew that their actions were likely to be subjected to close scrutiny.&#8221;

Carter Page

BOMBSHELL: FBI ‘Altered’ Evidence That Falsely Cast Carter Page As Russian Spy, Report Says

Department of Justice inspector general Michael Horowitz&#8217;s report on alleged FBI misconduct during its surveillance of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign found that the FBI &#8220;fell far short&#8221; and made &#8220;serious&#8221; errors in obtaining the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications that it used to surveil the campaign.
&#8220;We concluded that the failures described above and in this report represent serious performance failures by the supervisory and non-supervisory agents with responsibility over the FISA applications,&#8221; the investigation found. &#8220;These failures prevented [Office of Intelligence (OI)] from fully performing its gatekeeper function and deprived the decision makers the opportunity to make fully informed decisions. Although some of the factual misstatements and omissions we found in this review were arguably more significant than others, we believe that all of them taken together resulted in FISA applications that made it appear that the information supporting probable cause was stronger than was actually the case.&#8221;
&#8220;We identified at least 17 significant errors or omissions in the Carter Page FISA applications, and many additional errors in the Woods Procedures,&#8221; the investigation found. &#8220;These errors and omissions resulted from case agents providing wrong or incomplete information to OI and failing to flag important issues for discussion.&#8221;
The report states that Crossfire Hurricane, which was the code name of the FBI&#8217;s counterintelligence operation, found that there was insufficient evidence to support probable cause that Carter Page was an agent of a foreign power and that the FBI ultimately used the anti-Trump dossier compiled by British spy Christopher Steele to surveil the Trump Campaign.
The report continues, &#8220;However, on September 19, 2016, the same day that the Crossfire Hurricane team first received Steele&#8217;s election reporting, the team re-initiated discussions with OGC about seeking a FISA order authorizing surveillance targeting Page and specifically focused on Steele&#8217;s reporting in drafting the FISA request.&#8221;
That means that it appears as though that opposition research, paid for by Hillary Clinton&#8217;s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), was used to launch the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
On Sept. 23, Michael Isikoff&#39;s article against Page, for which Christopher Steele was the sole source, magically appeared.
The FBI cited the article as proof that Steele&#39;s dossier was corroborated, and lied to the FISA court about Steele being its source. <a href="https://t.co/x0kIYtY9g1">https://t.co/x0kIYtY9g1</a>
&mdash; Sean Davis (@seanmdav) <a href="https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1204102160579006471?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Even worse, the FBI &#8220;did not have information corroborating the specific allegations against Carter Page in Steele&#8217;s reports when it relied upon them in the FISA applications,&#8221; the investigation found, adding that the Steel&#8217;s unverified claims &#8220;played a central and essential role in the decision by FBI OGC to support the request for FISA surveillance targeting Carter Page, as well as the Department&#8217;s ultimate decision to seek the FISA order.&#8221;
The report also found that the FBI used Steele to get information on General Michael Flynn and promised Steele that he would be paid &#8220;significantly&#8221; for the information and that he would be paid an additional &#8220;$15,000 for his trip to the European city for the early October meeting.&#8221;
The report found that, according to FBI staff, &#8220;as the interagency editing process for the [Intelligence Community Assessment] progressed, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) expressed concern about the lack of vetting for the Steele election reporting and asserted it did not merit inclusion in the body of the report. An FBI Intel Section Chief told us the CIA viewed it as &#8216;internet rumor.'&#8221;
The report states that former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe persisted in including Steele&#8217;s unverified reporting that was deemed to be an &#8220;internet rumor&#8221; in their ICA.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
🚨
IG REPORT
The FBI used Christopher Steele to get information on General Flynn.
FBI promised Steele he would be paid &quot;significantly&quot; for this information.
cc <a href="https://twitter.com/KerriKupecDOJ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@KerriKupecDOJ</a> <a href="https://t.co/iLLDcTVnbJ">pic.twitter.com/iLLDcTVnbJ</a>
&mdash; Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) <a href="https://twitter.com/Techno_Fog/status/1204102000931221504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
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This is a breaking news story, refresh the page for updates.

IG Report Finds FBI ‘Fell Far Short,’ Made ‘Serious’ Errors In FISA Application To Surveil Trump Campaign

In government documents released Monday, Peter Strzok — the famous &#8220;anti-Trump&#8221; FBI agent who was a central figure in the bureau&#8217;s investigation into Hillary Clinton&#8217;s private email server and the early stages of the Trump-Russia &#8220;collusion&#8221; probe — is accused by the Department of Justice of several &#8220;security violations&#8221; and &#8220;unprofessional conduct.&#8221;
Strzok <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/former-fbi-agent-peter-strzok-sues-doj-over-his-firing-n1039696">sued</a> the Justice Department in August for what he says was an unfair, politically motivated firing that was a result of, as one of his lawyers put it, &#8220;President Trump’s unrelenting retaliatory campaign of false information&#8221; against him.
&#8220;The decision to fire Special Agent Strzok in violation of his Constitutional rights was the result of a long and public campaign by President Trump and his allies to vilify Strzok and pressure the agency to terminate him,&#8221; reads the complaint filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. on August 6. The Justice Department, Strzok claims, attempted to smear him in part by disclosing hundreds of text messages revealing his political bias and adulterous affair with FBI lawyer Lisa Page.
The Justice Department, however, maintains that Strzok has no case, its <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/435752237/Strzok-v-Barr-DOJ-DE-30-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">filing</a> Monday intended to hammer home that message by outlining a series of flagrant offenses committed by the agent — &#8220;including his alleged practice of keeping sensitive FBI documents on his unsecured personal electronic devices, even as his wife gained access to his cellphone and discovered evidence that he was having an affair with former FBI attorney Lisa Page,&#8221; as reported by <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doj-seeks-to-dismiss-strzoks-lawsuit-claiming-he-was-denied-due-process">Fox News</a>.
Among the offenses laid out by the FBI, was Strzok&#8217;s alleged &#8220;dereliction of supervisory responsibility&#8221; after Clinton&#8217;s emails were found on the laptop of disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, husband of Clinton&#8217;s top aide, Huma Abedin.
&#8220;In its filing, the DOJ included an <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/435752237/Strzok-v-Barr-DOJ-DE-30-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">August 2018 letter</a> to Strzok from the DOJ&#8217;s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), which said in part that Strzok had engaged in a &#8216;dereliction of supervisory responsibility&#8217; by failing to investigate the potentially classified Hillary Clinton emails that had turned up on an unsecured laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner as the 2016 election approached,&#8221; Fox News explains. &#8220;The situation became so dire, <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/435752237/Strzok-v-Barr-DOJ-DE-30-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">OPR said</a>, that a case agent in New York told federal prosecutors there that he was &#8216;scared&#8217; and &#8216;paranoid&#8217; that &#8216;somebody was not acting appropriately&#8217; and that &#8216;somebody was trying to bury this.'&#8221;
New York prosecutors were alarmed enough by the situation that they felt compelled to effectively bypass Strzok to get to then-FBI Director James Comey. The result was Comey announcing just days before the 2016 election that the Clinton email probe wasn&#8217;t over.
&#8220;Additionally, DOJ and OPR noted that although Strzok claimed to have &#8216;double deleted&#8217; sensitive FBI materials from his personal devices, his wife nonetheless apparently found evidence of his affair on his cellphone — including photographs and a hotel reservation &#8216;ostensibly&#8217; used for a &#8216;romantic encounter,'&#8221; Fox reports. &#8220;Strzok didn&#8217;t consent to turning over the devices for review, according to OPR, even as he acknowledged using Apple&#8217;s iMessage service for some FBI work.&#8221;
While the Justice Department has found him guilty of various security violations, dereliction of duty and unprofessional conduct, Strzok&#8217;s team has insisted that the agent was unfairly targeted by Trump and the department.
&#8220;While many in law enforcement have faced attacks by this president, Pete Strzok has been a constant target for two years,&#8221; Goelman said when his client first filed the lawsuit in August. &#8220;It’s indisputable that his termination was a result of President Trump’s unrelenting retaliatory campaign of false information, attacks and direct appeals to top officials.&#8221;
The DOJ counters in its motion that Strzok&#8217;s action undermined &#8220;the FBI’s ability to function as a trusted, nonpartisan institution,&#8221; and thus he deserved to be removed.
&#8220;It is because of those text messages, and the paramount importance of preserving the FBI’s ability to function as a trusted, nonpartisan institution, that Plaintiff was removed from his position, and not because of any alleged disagreement with Plaintiff&#8217;s viewpoints on political issues or Tweets from the President,&#8221; the department&#8217;s filing reads.

Peter Strzok

DOJ Details ‘Security Violations’ By ‘Anti-Trump’ Agent Peter Strzok

On Tuesday, the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/usms-led-operation-triple-beam-results-327-felony-arrests-central-and-northern-new-mexico">Department of Justice</a> announced the results of a 90-day law enforcement operation, known as “Operation Triple Beam Albuquerque”: 327 known violent offenders were arrested and brought to justice.
The DOJ stated the fugitives from the law came from Bernalillo County and the Albuquerque, New Mexico metropolitan area. The DOJ detailed the various crimes the fugitives had been charged with:
<blockquote>During OTB Albuquerque, SWIFT located and apprehended 327 alleged state, local and federal fugitives, including 59 state probation and parole absconders, 10 individuals wanted for homicide, 20 for weapons offenses, 13 for sex crimes, 50 for assault, and 91 on narcotics charges. In the Santa Fe and Farmington communities, investigators made 92 arrests. The operation resulted in the seizure of 43 illegal firearms, more than 50 pounds of methamphetamine, four pounds of heroin, and two pounds of cocaine. In addition, 31 stolen vehicles were recovered and $50,000 was seized.</blockquote>
Attorney General William P. Barr stated, “I commend the work of the brave men and women of the U.S. Marshals Service on their outstanding execution of Operation Triple Beam, a nationwide effort by the Marshals to target violent, gang-related crime in some of America’s most dangerous cities. The Marshals are truly America’s fugitive hunters, with a proud tradition dating back to the founding of the United States. Their unyielding commitment to justice, in partnership with our state and local colleagues, made this initiative a great success.”
U.S. Marshals Service Director Donald Washington echoed, “We brought Operation Triple Beam, our mobile gang enforcement platform, to Albuquerque to target the gang-related fugitives fueling the violent crime in the area. The U.S. Marshals in the District of New Mexico, along with dedicated inspectors in our Investigative Operations Division, and all of our partner agencies, achieved results that illustrate our full commitment to make communities safer by addressing violent crime at its core and taking the worst of the worst off the streets. The good citizens of New Mexico have our enduring support.”
U.S. Attorney John C. Anderson added, “The U.S. Attorney’s Office is committed to working with its law enforcement partners to combat violent crime throughout New Mexico. We commend the U.S. Marshals Service for regularly leading multi-agency operations like Triple Beam throughout the state that have made our communities safer by taking hundreds of fugitives off our streets.”
Bernalillo County Sheriff Manuel Gonzales III asserted, “Operation Triple Beam was an outstanding public safety effort by all personnel involved, and the unified approach for law enforcement resulted in hundreds of arrests, including many for dangerous outstanding warrants. I remain committed to collaborating with local and federal authorities to keep our children, families, and businesses safe.
The DOJ noted,“This is the second OTB conducted by the U.S. Marshals in New Mexico this year. OTB Las Cruces concluded April 12, 2019, with the arrest of 154 fugitives throughout Dona Ana County; there were 115 felony arrests within the City of Las Cruces … Since the Department of Justice reinvigorated Project Safe Neighborhoods in 2017, U.S. Marshals have launched 33 OTB collaborations of local, state, federal and tribal law enforcement agencies in some of the nation’s most violence-plagued communities, resulting in more than 6,000 arrests, 1,200 firearms confiscations, and the seizure of $1.8 million.”
&nbsp;

Welcome Sign at the entrance to Albuquerque, NM

DOJ: We Arrested 327 Violent Offenders Who Had Fled From Justice In New Mexico

New Mexico

In a newly admitted &#8220;mistake&#8221; the defense has decried as &#8220;appalling,&#8221; the attorneys prosecuting former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn have been forced to admit this week that they &#8220;misidentified&#8221; the sources of the FBI notes upon which the case against Flynn has been based.
The notes on the conversation with Flynn that the prosecutors believed were written by anti-Trump agent Peter Strzok, the prosecutors admitted in a letter Tuesday, were in fact written by his partner, Joe Pientka. The admission further calls into question Strzok&#8217;s credibility, as he had insisted that Pientka was &#8220;primarily responsible&#8221; for taking the notes and writing the key document in the case, the FD-302 form. The admission also follows the defense&#8217;s accusation that the FBI deliberately altered the original 302 form to suggest Flynn had lied about his contact with a Russian ambassador
As reported by <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/doj-admits-in-michael-flynn-case-that-fbi-mistakenly-identified-peter-strzok-notes/">National Review</a>&#8216;s Tobias Hoonhout on Wednesday, in a letter sent to Flynn&#8217;s lawyer Sidney Powell, the Justice Department prosecuting attorneys were forced to admit that they had been misidentifying the sources of the notes on the FBI&#8217;s January 2017 interview with Flynn for the entirety of the case, some 18 months.
Since the FBI does not record its interviews, such notes stand in place of an official transcript. The notes incorrectly believed to have been taken by Strzok formed the basis of the official FBI document on the interview.
&#8220;We were informed that the notes we had identified as Peter Strzok’s, were actually the other agent’s notes (see Surreply, Exhibit 1), and what we had identified as the other agent’s notes were in fact Strzok’s notes (see Surreply, Exibit 2),&#8221; the prosecutors admitted to Powell in the letter.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
New letter to the Court from DOJ on the Flynn case.
They misidentified the FBI agents&#8217; notes. 🤦‍♂️
Strzok&#8217;s notes are really Pientka&#8217;s notes, and Pientka&#8217;s notes are really Strzok&#8217;s notes. <a href="https://t.co/9eTBZrymv9">pic.twitter.com/9eTBZrymv9</a>
— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) <a href="https://twitter.com/Techno_Fog/status/1191860980554354688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 5, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;The FBI’s admission calls into further question the credibility of the case and of former FBI agent Peter Strzok, who told the FBI that his partner Joe Pientka was &#8216;primarily responsible for taking notes and writing the FD-302,&#8221; Hoonhout writes.
&#8220;In defending Flynn, Powell has argued that Strzok’s supposed notes were too orderly and well constructed to have been taken in the actual interview,&#8221; he explains. &#8220;Now the letter, coupled with prosecution’s release of notes last week, apparently reveal that Strzok, in fact, took the majority of the notes in the interview.&#8221;
Strzok has become a central figure in multiple cases, as he led the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton&#8217;s unsecured and unapproved private email server and was initially a member of Robert Mueller&#8217;s special counsel investigative team before being removed after evidence of his overtly anti-Trump bias came to light.
Powell recently accused the FBI of <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/flynns-lawyer-claims-fbi-tampered-with-interview-notes-demands-charges-be-dropped-due-to-outrageous-government-misconduct/">tampering</a> with the Flynn 302 document to suggest that Flynn lied about his contact with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
&#8220;Those changes added an unequivocal statement that ‘Flynn stated he did not’ — in response to whether Mr. Flynn had asked Kislyak to vote in a certain manner or slow down the UN vote [on sanctions],&#8221; Powell alleged in a 37-page motion two weeks ago. &#8220;This is a deceptive manipulation because, as the notes of the agents show, Mr. Flynn was not even sure he had spoken to Russia/Kislyak on the issue. He had talked to dozens of countries.&#8221;
&#8220;That question and answer does not appear in the notes, yet it was made into a criminal offense,&#8221; Powell stated. &#8220;The draft also shows that the agents moved a sentence to make it seem to be an answer to a question it was not.&#8221;
As National Review explains, the admission by prosecutors about confusing the source of the case&#8217;s key document was prompted by Powell demanding that the FBI search its &#8220;Sentinel Database&#8221; for all drafts of the 302 to show if any significant alterations had been made.  Flynn&#8217;s texts with his paramour FBI lawyer Lisa Page revealed that he admitted to making changes to the 302 with her help on the same day that news broke that Flynn had talked about sanctions with Kislyak. The reports cited &#8220;senior intelligence officials&#8221; as the source of the claim.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/mueller-report-edited-conversation-between-trump-ashe-schow">Mueller Report Edited Conversation Between Trump, Flynn Lawyers. The Transcript Was Just Released.</a>

‘Appalling’: FBI ‘Misidentified’ Anti-Trump Agent’s Notes In Case Against Mike Flynn

Michael Flynn

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