Trump is punking the former tough talking Obama officials.
President Donald Trump tweeted Monday morning that those former intelligence officials who had emerged publicly to defend former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director John Brennan had done so to protect their former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director John Brennan interests.
Trump drew attention to the fact that holding high-level security clearance is often a prerequisite for the top jobs in Washington, DC, and that retaining that clearance after retirement — when it is no longer needed for public purposes — is a well-known perk of life at the top of the food chain in the Beltway “swamp.”
So Drain The Damn Swamp Now.
Trump began by responding to Brennan’s threat hat he might sue the president after Trump revoked his clearance last week. Brennan has described that decision as an attempt to stifle freedom of speech, and criticism of the president in particular.
But Trump said he would welcome a lawsuit as a chance to use discovery to uncover Brennan’s involvement in allegedly conducting surveillance on his campaign during the 2016 election, which led indirectly to the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller:
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
I hope John Brennan, the worst CIA Director in our country’s history, brings a lawsuit. It will then be very easy to get all of his records, texts, emails and documents to show not only the poor job he did, but how he was involved with the Mueller Rigged Witch Hunt. He won’t sue!
Trump then followed up by calling out the practice of using security clearance for economic gain:
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
Everybody wants to keep their Security Clearance, it’s worth great prestige and big dollars, even board seats, and that is why certain people are coming forward to protect Brennan. It certainly isn’t because of the good job he did! He is a political “hack.”
Trump’s argument about corrupt relationships at the top levels of intelligence and Beltway companies is bolstered by a new book by Seamus Bruner of the Government Accountability Institute: Compromised: How Money and Politics Drive FBI Corruption.
DOJ attorney George Toscas will be deposed Thursday as part of a congressional investigation into possible FISA abuse.
Staffers with the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees will quiz Toscas about DOJ official Bruce Ohr.
Ohr will be interviewed on Aug. 28.
House Republicans will resume an investigation of the FBI and DOJ’s handling of the Russia investigation on Thursday with a deposition of George Z. Toscas, a national security attorney at the Department of Justice.
Toscas, who handles counterterrorism and counterespionage cases, will appear for a deposition at 10 a.m. before staffers with the House Judiciary and House Government & Oversight Committees, a source familiar with the matter tells The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Toscas was one of 17 current and former FBI and Justice Department officials included on a list submitted to the two House committees by California Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Nunes suggested interviewing Toscas and the other officials regarding an investigation into the FBI and Justice Department’s possible abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Congressional Republicans have probed whether the agencies misled federal surveillance judges by relying on the unverified Steele dossier to obtain FISA warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Toscas is mentioned throughout text messages exchanged between former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page. Strzok and Page, neither of which work for the FBI (Strzok was fired on Aug. 10), mentioned Toscas most often during the FBI’s Hillary Clinton email investigation.
The Washington Post has reported that Toscas was the Justice Department official who reminded then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe about Clinton emails found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. McCabe had been informed about the emails weeks earlier but failed to take action on them until late-October 2016.
Strzok and Page, who have already been interviewed by the House panels, also mention Toscas in text messages sent at key points in the FBI’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign.
Strzok sent one message to Page on July 30, 2016, the day before the FBI opened the Russia probe, that appears to reference Toscas and then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
“Do you know if Andy got concurrence back from George about the preamble? No need to ask Andy right now, I think we can in very good faith date the [letterhead memorandum] July 2016,” Strzok wrote.
TheDCNF’s source says that Republicans will ask Toscas about the origins of the government’s Russia probe as well as about Bruce Ohr, the Justice Department official who served as a back channel between the FBI and Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the dossier.
Ohr was also in contact with Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that hired Steele as part of an anti-Trump project financed by the Clinton campaign and DNC.
Ohr’s wife, a Russia expert named Nellie Ohr, worked for Fusion GPS on the Trump project.
Ohr, who was demoted in December from his position as assistant deputy attorney general, will be interviewed by the two House committees on Aug. 28.
Republicans want to know who at the Justice Department, if anyone, directed Ohr to maintain contact with Steele. The relationship has raised questions because the FBI cut ties with Steele on Nov. 1, 2016 because of the former spy’s unauthorized contacts with the media.
Lawmakers have also questioned why Ohr was meeting with Steele despite claims from top DOJ officials that he was not on the team leading the Russia investigation.
“To my knowledge he wasn’t working on the Russian matter,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testified on June 28.
Ohr was interviewed a dozen times by the FBI after the election about his interactions with Steele. Text messages and emails recently provided to Congress also show that Ohr and Steele were in contact throughout 2016 and 2017.
President Trump on Saturday reacted to the indictment of 12 Russian military officers “for conspiring to interfere with the 2016 presidential election” by blaming former President Obama and the “deep state.”
“The stories you heard about the 12 Russians yesterday took place during the Obama Administration, not the Trump Administration,” he tweeted from Scotland. “Why didn’t they do something about it, especially when it was reported that President Obama was informed by the FBI in September, before the Election?”
He also expelled 35 Russian diplomats from the U.S. and ordered two Russian compounds to be closed.
Special counsel Robert Mueller is now leading the investigation into Russian interference in the election, as well as possible collusion within the Trump campaign. His probe led to the 12 indictments announced on Friday by the Justice Department. They are charged with hacking Democratic National Committee (DNC) officials and dispersing the stolen documents online.
The Trump administration has emphasized that the indictments do not indicate any level of collusion by a member of the Trump campaign. Trump has repeatedly said there was no collusion.
Trump went on to question “Where is the DNC Server, and why didn’t the FBI take possession of it?”
He proposed that the server could have been kept hidden by the “Deep State.”
The deep state is a conspiracy theory that claims high-level officials run a shadow government working against Trump.
Trump has suggested in the past a conspiracy around the computer servers at the DNC that Russians hacked during the election.
The FBI reportedly has not directly assessed the hacked server during the agency investigation, instead relying on information from a private security firm.
FBI special agent Peter Strzok refused to answer House Freedom Caucus co-founder Jim Jordan regarding which individuals gave the Bureau three copies of the Trump dossier, claiming the FBI will not allow him to divulge his sources.
Strzok appeared before a joint House committee hearing Thursday to discuss his role in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
After Jordan got Strzok on record admitting to having read the dossier, the Ohio representative zoned in on an email Strzok sent to a number of intelligence officials, including a woman he was having an extramarital affair with, former FBI counsel Lisa Page. In the email, Strzok discussed the different version of the dossier the FBI received from three separate sources.
“We got an e-mail that you sent. It should be presented there or should be in front of you there. I want you to take a look at this. This is an e-mail you wrote to Lisa Page, Bill, Jim, and cc’d Andy McCabe. The subject is Buzzfeed is about to accomplish the dossier. Are you familiar with this e-mail?” Jordan asked.
“I am,” Strzok replied.
“It says this, ‘Comparing now the set is only identical to what McCain had, parentheses, it has differences from what was given to us by Corn and Simpson.’ Did you write all that?” Jordan asked.
“It says ‘Peter Strzok’ and it says to ‘Lisa Page’ and a whole bunch of key people to the FBI. Did you write it?” Jordan asked.
“I did write this,” Strzok replied.
Jordan then tried to figure out who the Corn and Simpson Strzok was referencing and what their relation was to the dossier dumps. Strzok said that he is unable to answer that question under FBI direction.
Increasingly frustrated, Jordan then tried to coax Strzok to reveal the identities of Corn, Simpson and another source, Page.
“I just want to figure this out. I want to figure this out, agent Strzok. You’re referencing three copies of the dossier: the Buzzfeed copy you have, the one john McCain’s staff gave to you and the one that you said you got from Corn and Simpson. The one McCain gave to you and the one Buzzfeed has are identical in your words, but they have — the Corn and Simpson one is different,” Jordan said.
Strzok refused to answer that there were three copies of the dossier presented to the FBI, despite the fact that he referenced them in his email to intelligence officials.
The last portion of Jordan and Strzok’s interaction dealt with whether or not Simpson or anyone from Fusion GPS made contact with the FBI.
“Let me ask you one other question. Glen Simpson testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on August 2017. Did anyone from Fusion ever communicate with the FBI? His response, no. No one from Fusion ever spoke with the FBI,” Jordan said. “So here’s what I’m having trouble understanding. If Glenn Simpson says no one ever spoke with the FBI, how is it that you got a copy of the dossier from Simpson?”
Strzok said not only did he never speak to Simpson, he never spoke to anyone Jordan mentioned.
“Sir, I can tell you I never had contact with Fusion, with Mr. Simpson, with Mr. Corn,” Strzok replied.
“Very briefly, sir, I would love to do that. There’s an appropriate time for oversight and as you well know that is at the end of an investigation, once it’s concluded. I am certain Congress will absolutely have the opportunity to look at any investigation once it’s closed, ask all these questions, and I would love to answer each and every one of your questions once the FBI allows me to do that.”
STRZOK CLAIMS HE STILL HAS TOP SECRET SECURITY CLEARANCE, CONTRADICTING JEFF SESSIONS
Anti-Trump FBI agent Peter Strzok told Congress on Thursday that he still has a top secret security clearance, in contradiction with a claim made in June by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
“You currently have what classification?” Strzok was asked by Georgia Republican Rep. Doug Collins during a joint hearing of the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees.
“I have a top secret clearance with some SCI compartments,” replied Strzok, the former deputy director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division. “SCI” is an acronym for highly classified materials known as Sensitive Compartmented Information. (RELATED: Sessions Claims That Peter Strzok Lost Security Clearance)
Strzok’s statement is a surprise of sorts given comments that Sessions made during a June 21 interview with conservative radio host Howie Carr.
“Mr. Strzok, as I understand, has lost his security clearance,” Sessions said.
Strzok was escorted out of FBI headquarters on June 15, a day after the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General referred him to the FBI for a disciplinary review over his Trump text messages.
Strzok was the FBI’s top investigator on the probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government. During that time, he spoke critically of Trump, calling the Republican an “idiot” and mocking his supporters.
He was removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team in July 2017 after the discovery of his text exchanges. He currently works in the FBI’s human resources division.
The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment on the discrepancy between Strzok and Sessions’s statements.
The US President told reporters he could meet his Russian counterpart around his trip to the UK in just two weeks’ time
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin during their last meeting at the G20 (Image: AFP)
Details of Donald Trump’s planned summit with Vladimir Putin have been confirmed this morning, as fears grow in Britain that the US President will strike a ‘peace deal’ with the Russian strongman.
The two leaders will meet in Helsinki on July 16, the Kremlin and White House revealed this afternoon.
“The two leaders will discuss relations between the United States and Russia and a range of national security issues,” the White House said in a statement.
The deal was struck after a trip to the Kremlin by National Security Advisor John Bolton, who held a meeting with President Putin.
President Trump said last night: “It would look like we will probably be meeting some time in the not too distant future.
“We will probably be meeting some time around my trip to Europe.” The trip was later confirmed.
According to The Times, Britain fears Trump will undermine Nato by striking a ‘peace deal’ with the Russian President.
A Cabinet minister told the Times: “What we’re nervous of is some kind of Putin-Trump ‘peace deal’ suddenly being announced.
“We could all see Trump and Putin saying, ‘why do we have all this military hardware in Europe?’ and agreeing to jointly remove that.”
The sources feared the President could hand the Kremlin a propaganda victory with an agreement like that signed by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.
Nearly 2,000 British troops have led a Nato deployment in Estonia as part of a heavy military presence in the Baltic states, near the Russian frontier.
The US leader is due at the Nato summit in Brussels on July 11-12, followed by a working visit to Britain on July 13 to see the Queen and Theresa May.
Inspector general’s report examines allegations of misconduct by the FBI and DOJ; Catherine Herridge has the details.
“Foreign actors” obtained access to some of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails — including at least one email classified as “secret” — according to a new memo from two GOP-led House committees and an internal FBI email.
Fox News obtained the memo prepared by the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, which lays out key interim findings ahead of next week’s hearing with Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. The IG, separately, is expected to release his highly anticipated report on the Clinton email case later Thursday.
The House committees, which conducted a joint probe into decisions made by the DOJ in 2016 and 2017, addressed a range of issues in their memo including Clinton’s email security.
“Documents provided to the Committees show foreign actors obtained access to some of Mrs. Clinton’s emails — including at least one email classified ‘Secret,'” the memo says, adding that foreign actors also accessed the private accounts of some Clinton staffers.
The memo does not say who the foreign actors are, or what material was obtained, but it notes that secret information is defined as information that, if disclosed, could “reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the national security.”
The committees say that no one appears to have been held accountable either criminally or administratively.
Relatedly, Fox News has obtained a May 2016 email from FBI investigator Peter Strzok — who also is criticized in the House memo for his anti-Trump texts with colleague Lisa Page. The email says that “we know foreign actors obtained access” to some Clinton emails, including at least one “secret” message “via compromises of the private email accounts” of Clinton staffers.
The question of whether foreign actors penetrated the Clinton email system has been a significant one ever since the private server was revealed. Then-FBI Director James Comey, in his July 2016 statement on the Clinton case, did not go as far as Strzok in his assessment of that possibility. At the time, he said only that, “We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial email accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account.”
Fox News also reported in March that Strzok was advised of an irregularity in the metadata of Clinton’s server that suggested a possible breach, but there was no significant follow up, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.
Clinton’s use of a private email server when she served as the nation’s top diplomat became a central issue of the 2016 campaign. After a lengthy investigation, Comey controversially announced in July 2016 that the agency would not recommend charges, but said that Clinton was “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information.
He then announced he would revisit the probe just days before the election after the discovery of new emails, a move that the Clinton camp has blamed for her loss to President Trump.
Horowitz was due to release his long-awaited report into the FBI and DOJ’s actions on Thursday afternoon.
In the House memo, lawmakers questioned whether the DOJ and FBI properly analyzed and interpreted the law surrounding mishandling of classified information.
“Officials from both agencies have created a perception they misinterpreted the Espionage Act by stating Secretary Clinton lacked the requisite ‘intent’ for charges to be filed,” the memo says, before pointing to statements by Comey that indicated a belief that intent was required — which the memo says ignored “meaningful aspects” of the law.
The committees’ memo also says it appears the outcome of the investigation was “predetermined” in May, two months before Comey’s press conference and before multiple interviews had taken place.
It also accuses Comey of getting ahead of the DOJ on the final decision on whether to prosecute Clinton.
“Mr. Comey, as the FBI Director, was the chief investigator, not the prosecutor. It was not up to him to determine what a ‘reasonable prosecutor’ would do with the evidence the FBI had collected,” the memo says.
Donald J. Trump
