Given the FBI’s repeated intransigence over the years in responding to our FOIA requests, I’m not of a mind to assume this story represents simply an innocent mistake.
The FBI has released 277 pages of redacted records that show the FBI failed to produce information from an August 2015 meeting with Intelligence Community Inspector General about Hillary Clinton’s email server. The FBI claimed that notes are “missing” and the CD containing notes from meeting is likely “damaged” irreparably.
The records, which were posted on the FBI’s website, are the 32nd release of documents in response to our 2016 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:16-cv-02046). We filed the lawsuit after the Justice Department failed to comply with a July 7, 2016, FOIA request for:
- All FD-302 forms prepared pursuant to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server during her tenure.
- All records of communications between any agent, employee, or representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding, concerning, or related to the aforementioned investigation. This request includes, but is not limited to, any related communications with any official, employee, or representative of the Department of Justice, the Executive Office of the President, the Democratic National Committee, and/or the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.
- All records related to the meeting between Attorney General Lynch and former President Bill Clinton on June 27, 2016.
Included in the documents are February 2019 FBI electronic communications documenting the damaged CD and the missing notes from the August 3, 2015, meeting between FBI special agents and the ICIG about Clinton’s server:
For reference, Special Agents (SAs) [redacted] have been gathering and copying materials from the captioned case located in the Washington Field Office (WFO) CI-13 Workbox in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) tasking from Information Management Division (IMD; formerly known as Records Management Division).
On or about February 6, 2019, SAs [redacted] opened [redacted]-CYBER-1A27, which contained a CD with a crack on it (a damaged CD). SA [redacted] attempted to copy the damaged CD at the WFO Computer Analysis Response Team (CART) self-service area, but was not able to do so. SA [redacted] spoke with FBI information technology specialists on the ground floor of WFO regarding the damaged CD, who indicated it was unlikely the CD could be copied.
The electronic communication regarding the missing “Notes from Meeting” says:
On or about February 4, 2016, Special Agents (SAs) [redacted] attempted to locate [redacted] 1A4, described as “Notes from Meeting” acquired by [redacted] (see referenced serial). The SAs looked through all case materials in the CI-13 file and workbox area, however they were not able to locate this item.
SA [redacted] inquired with Supervisory Intelligence Analyst (SIA) [redacted] regarding the item, as he was previously the IA assigned to the case. SIA [redacted] contacted [redacted] regarding the item, who indicated he remembered handing over his case notes to SA [redacted] (see attached email).
On February 6, 2019, SA [redacted] contacted SA [redacted] regarding the notes. SA [redacted] explained he documented all relevant case materials before leaving the case and did not retain any notes or other case materials.
As such, WFO CI-13 considers the item missing and will enclose this document into 1A4 as a placeholder until the missing item is located.
The email referred to in the electronic communication on the missing “Notes from Meeting” reads as follows:
From: [Redacted]
To: [Redacted]
CC: [Redacted] [Redacted] [Redacted]
Subject: RE: MYE Serial #??
Date: Tuesday, February 05, 2019 10:43:14 AM
I actually remember turning over my original notes for the file for this (it was right at the beginning of the case). I gave them to [redacted] who was running the file then. The only question will be whether or not I kept a copy for myself. I’ll look and see what I have.
Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) said during a hearing with Strzok that in 2015 ICIG investigator Fred Rucker advised Strzok of an “anomaly” on Hillary Clinton’s emails going through the private server. The forensic analysis found that all of those emails except four – over 30,000 – “were going to an address that was not on the distribution list.” It was later reported that it was a “Chinese state-owned company” that hacked Clinton’s server. The ICIG referred the Clinton email investigation to the FBI on July 6, 2015, just under a month before the meeting for which the notes were “lost.”
The document production contains emails between Justin Cooper (the former close aide to Bill Clinton, who helped set up Hillary Clinton’s email system) and Huma Abedin regarding an attempted breach of the Clinton email server. On January 9, 2011, Cooper emailed Abedin: “I had to shut down the server Someone was trying to hack us and while they did not get in i didnt [sic] want to let them have the chance to. I will restart it in the morning.” Despite Abedin’s having explicitly warned Sullivan and Mills that Clinton’s unsecure non-government server had been attacked, the documents contain handwritten FBI notes of Abedin’s 2016 FBI interview in which she told agents she didn’t recall any hacking attempts.
The Obama FBI was frantic to target then-candidate Trump while magically losing or destroying important evidence in the sham investigation of Hillary Clinton’s illicit email system. This new information underscores the need for a fresh, unbiased investigation into the Clinton email scandal.
In a related case, we recently obtained documents from the DOJ showing that on August 5, 2016 – a month after Comey’s exoneration of Clinton – FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok and Jonathan Moffa were notified by a FBI assistant general counsel from the national security law branch that several FBI 302 interview reports were in need of processing:
Today [Redacted] brought over additional 302s from the WFO [Washington Field Office]. Are those supposed to go through the redaction process for production to DOJ on Monday? We’re trying to figure out what needs to be completed this weekend.
Page responded by writing to Strzok, Moffa and others that four FBI 302 reports of interviews related to the Clinton “Midyear Exam” investigation had never even been written:
[Redacted] to the best of my knowledge, yes they will when Pete identified for [redacted] the DOJ edits that needed to be made to the 302s [redacted] discovered that there were four (I think) 302s that had never been written. What I don’t know is whose 302s they are but unless Pete or Jon are able to respond in short order, I would throw them on the pile for redactions. Thanks so much.
Additionally, we recently filed a lawsuit against the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for details of a meeting with the FBI regarding national security threats associated with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “private” email system.
As you can see, Judicial Watch is the nation’s leader in exposing the corrupt FBI cover-up of the Hillary Clinton email scandal and concurrent illegal targeting of President Trump. And there is more to come.
Bruce Ohr Received Big Bonus During Russiagate and Pay Raise AFTER He Was Demoted
We have some incredible new documents that show the DOJ gave substantial extra income one of the most controversial Russiagate perps – DOJ official Bruce Ohr.
Today, we released Justice Department documents showing that Bruce Ohr received $42,520 in performance bonuses during the Trump/Russia investigation. In fact, his bonus nearly doubled from $14,520 (received in November 2015) to $28,000 in November 2016.
This revelation came in Notification of Personnel Action (SF-50) and Request for Personnel Action (SF-52) forms that we requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The documents show that on November 13, 2016, Ohr was given a performance award of $28,000. This was during the time of his deep involvement in the highly controversial Justice Department surveillance of the Trump presidential campaign. The bonus was nearly double the $14,250 performance award he was given on November 29, 2015.
Bruce Ohr was married to Nellie Ohr of Fusion GPS and was removed because of his conflict of interest and role as conduit for Fusion GPS material. The documents show that Ohr was removed from his position as Associate Deputy Attorney General on December 6, 2017. On January 7, 2018, Ohr was reassigned from his position of director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) and shifted to Counselor for International Affairs in the Department of Justice Criminal Division. Ohr received a $2,600 pay increase.
These documents will raise questions as to whether the conflicted Bruce Ohr, who the FBI used to launder information from Christopher Steele, was rewarded for his role in the illicit targeting of President Trump.
We have five current lawsuits pursuing information on Bruce Ohr’s complex entanglement in the festering coup attempt.
One of our FOIA lawsuits recently produced information from the DOJ showing a conversation between former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Kathleen Kavalec and Bruce Ohr, in which they discussed the targeting of Donald Trump with Steele dossier material. In discussing a meeting with the potential source for a Mother Jones article accusing the Trump campaign of taking money from a Russian-American oil magnate, as well as Christopher Steele’s connection to that source, Kavalec emails Ohr citing the accusatory Mother Jones article. Ohr says, “I really hope we can get something going here.”
We also obtained an email revealing that Nellie Ohr, wife of Bruce Ohr, informed him that she was deleting emails sent from his DOJ email account. The full email exchange is between Bruce Ohr, Lisa Holtyn, Nellie Ohr, and Stefan Bress, a first secretary at the German Embassy, and is part of 339 pages of heavily redacted records from the U.S. Department of Justice.
We have uncovered emails from Ohr showing that he remained in regular contact with former British spy and Fusion GPS contractor Christopher Steele after Steele was terminated by the FBI in November 2016 for revealing to the media his position as an FBI confidential informant. The records show that Ohr served as a go-between for Steele by passing along information to “his colleagues” on matters relating to Steele’s activities. Ohr also set up meetings with Steele, regularly talked to him on the telephone and provided him assistance in dealing with situations Steele was confronting with the media.
We are also suing the DOJ for communications between two of the pivotal players in the Deep State, anti-Trump collusion – former FBI official Peter Strzok and Ohr (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-01082)). We are challenging the Justice Department’s extraordinary claim that there are no records of communications between Strzok and Ohr in light of the preeminent role both individuals played in the Deep State effort to undermine the Trump campaign and administration. In addition, Ohr himself testified before Congress that he did, in fact, meet and communicate with Strzok.
We are also seek records about the agency’s involvement in persuading President Trump to defer his September 2018 decision to declassify DOJ documents related to the Russia investigation (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-00507)). Our lawsuit is also seeking DOJ official Ohr’s records of communications around the time of Trump’s declassification announcement.
We filed suit for details of the “302” reports from the FBI interview with Ohr. The interviews could be key to understanding how information from anti-Trump dossier author, British spy Christopher Steele, was transmitted to the FBI. (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-02107)). The House Intelligence Committee memo released by Chairman Devin Nunes on February 2 says that his wife, Nellie Ohr, was “employed by Fusion GPS to assist in the cultivation of opposition research on Trump” and that Bruce Ohr passed the results of that research, which was paid for by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign, to the FBI.
Ohr is at the center of the Deep State assault on President Trump and these latest documents are just more evidence of the Deep State taking care of its own.
FBI Helped Hillary Clinton Just Before 2016 Election!
Has there ever been any doubt that James Comey’s FBI treated Hillary Clinton with kid gloves? We now have more evidence of the agency jumping to please her just before the presidential election…
We forced the release of 218 pages of emails of disgraced former FBI officials Peter Strzok-Lisa Page that show then-FBI General Counsel James Baker instructing FBI officials to expedite the release of FBI investigative material to Hillary Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall in August 2016. Kendall and the FBI’s top lawyer specifically discussed quickly obtaining the “302” report of the FBI/DOJ interview of Mrs. Clinton.
The emails also show the FBI failed to document at least four interviews of witnesses in the Clinton email investigation.
We obtained the documents in our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the Justice Department failed to respond to a December 4, 2017, FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice(No. 1:18-cv-00154)) for:
- All records of communications, including but not limited to, emails, text messages and instant chats, between FBI official Peter Strozk and FBI attorney Lisa Page;
- All travel requests, travel authorizations, travel vouchers and expense reports of Peter Strozk;
- All travel requests, travel authorizations, travel vouchers and expense reports of Lisa Page.
On August 16, 2016, at 10:02 p.m. Baker emails then-Associate Deputy Director David Bowdich; Michael Steinbach, former executive assistant director for national security; former Acting Assistant Director Jason V. Herring; former FBI lawyer Lisa Page; former Principal Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson; Michael Kortan, FBI assistant director for public affairs, now retired; James Rybicki, former chief of staff to Comey; and others to inform them that he “just spoke” with Clinton’s lawyer Kendall, who requested documents from the FBI. Baker says he told Kendall he would “need to submit a request.” Baker tells them, “I said we would process it expeditiously.”
I just spoke with David Kendall … I conveyed our view that in order to obtain the documents [FBI investigative material] they are seeking they need to submit a request pursuant to the Privacy Act and FOIA. I said they could submit a letter to me covering both statutes. They will send it in the morning. I said that we would process it expeditiously. David asked us to focus first on the Secretary’s 302 [FBI interview report]. I said OK. [Redacted] We will have to focus on this issue tomorrow and get the 302 out the door as soon as possible and then focus on the rest of the stuff.
The following day, August 17, 2016, Kendall sent a FOIA/Privacy Act request on “behalf of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton” to the FBI’s top lawyer with a request for “expeditious processing.” Baker passes this request to Bowdich, Steinbach, Herring, Page, Anderson:
In my view, we need to move as quickly as possible on this, but pursuant to David’s oral request last night, we should focus first on Secretary Clinton’s 302…. Is the end of this week out of the question for her 302?
In a follow-up email exchange, the same day, Anderson arranged for Herring, Page, former FBI Assistant Director and head of the Office of Congressional Affairs Gregory Brower, Strzok and others to “coordinate a plan for processing and releasing” Clinton’s 302, though one official reminds others that they should process the request “consistent” with other requests.
Then, in an August 21, 2016, email exchange Baker tells his people that he would “alert” Kendall shortly before Clinton’s 302 was to be posted on the FBI’s FOIA Vault webpage. On September 2, 2016, the FBI announced the release of Clinton’s interview documents.
Finally, on August 24, 2016, the acting FBI FOIA unit chief said he sees “no problem” with giving Hillary’s attorney a heads up before her records were posted to the Vault.
Other documents show that on August 5, 2016, Page, Strzok and FBI intelligence analyst Jonathan Moffa are notified by a FBI assistant general counsel from the national security law branch that additional 302’s were in need of processing:
Today [Redacted] brought over additional 302s from the WFO [Washington Field Office]. Are those supposed to go through the redaction process for production to DOJ on Monday? We’re trying to figure out what needs to be completed this weekend.
Page responds by writing to Strzok, Moffa and others that four FBI 302 report of interviews related to the Clinton “Midyear Exam” investigation had never even been written:
[Redacted] to the best of my knowledge, yes they will when Pete identified for [redacted] the DOJ edits that needed to be made to the 302s [redacted] discovered that there were four (I think) 302s that had never been written. What I don’t know is whose 302s they are but unless Pete or Jon are able to respond in short order, I would throw them on the pile for redactions. Thanks so much.
On August 24, 2016, Daily Beast reporter Shane Harris sent an inquiry to the FBI asking if Comey’s admission to Congress was accurate that Hillary’s lawyers at William & Connolly did not possess the security clearances needed to see and possess highly classified Hillary emails being stored at their law offices. Harris’s question set off a scramble at the top of the FBI all the way up to Comey over the next 28 hours, producing a seven-page (mostly redacted) email discussion, with Lisa Page concluding, “Could we say something more equivocal?”
In a September 1, 2016, email exchange, Page, Strzok, Office of Public Affairs official Michael Kortan and Special Agent Richard Quinn discuss an email from The Hill’s John Solomon, wherein Solomon forwarded them his draft article for Circa.com citing “government sources” detailing extensive evidence the FBI had collected, which showed Hillary Clinton “violated federal record-keeping laws” through her use of a private BlackBerry and server, despite the security and legal risks she was told they posed. Solomon asked for any final “guidance” from the FBI before publishing. Page writes to Moffa, Strzok and a redacted FBI official, it was “pretty inaccurate,” but provided nothing to support her charge of its inaccuracy. Judicial Watch’s work on the Hillary Clinton email scandal is cited extensively in the column, and former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker was quoted as well, saying a special prosecutor was needed to look into Hillary’s use of the personal server.
On August 16, 2016, after Congress requested that the FBI supply additional copies of the binders of Clinton server-investigation materials, an unidentified FBI official complained to his colleagues of being understaffed and under supplied:
We literally do not have the office supplies to do this. Nor do I have the IAs [Investigative Assistants/Analysts] for assistance…. These binders are huge and each one took hours to compile.
***
I am not trying to throw shade…. I just wish decisions could get made by considering resources.
I need people in [room] 7947 ready to go in the early AM and a charge card for Staples.”
These incredible documents show that the leadership of the FBI rushed to give Hillary Clinton her FBI interview report shortly before the election. And the documents also show the FBI failed to timely document interviews in the Clinton email ‘matter’ – further confirming the whole investigation was a joke. AG Barr can’t reopen the Clinton email investigation soon enough.
The open borders crisis is a dire national security, public safety and public health threat. Our Corruption Chronicles blog reports:
Mexican drug cartels have headquarters throughout the United States and are one of the country’s greatest criminal, national security and public health threats, according to a veteran Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) senior agent pushing the federal government to designate them as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO). “The Mexican cartels have left a trail of blood using intimidation and terrorist acts of ruthless violence,” said Derek S. Maltz, a narco-terror expert who helped establish the Counter Narco-Terrorism Operations Center (CNTOC) before retiring from the DEA. The CNTOC has busted many bigtime narco-terrorism operations, including a money laundering scheme that supported the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.
“The cartels engage in beheadings, car bombings, dissolving humans in acid, mass murders, torture, bombings and political assassinations,” Maltz said. “Their actions are consistent with the behaviors of traditional terrorists and they have infiltrated the highest levels of the Mexican government with bribes and corruption.” The former DEA agent added that, “Mexican drug cartels have utilized techniques which focus on mind manipulation and behavioral modification commonly utilized by organizations such as Al-Qaeda.” The troubling details were delivered during recent testimony before the Ohio legislature, where Maltz made a powerful case for designating Mexican drug cartels as FTOs. Following a massive bust of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel in the Buckeye State, a resolution was introduced to get the federal government to make the change so that it may use “appropriate means to mitigate and eventually eliminate the operations of the cartels.” Last week a criminal justice committee heard testimony as the resolution advances in the Ohio legislature. Maltz was a key expert witness, telling the panel that cartels “have major hubs in Southern California, Arizona, Chicago, Texas, New York and Atlanta” and have “expanded into South Florida.”
The resolution states that Transitional Criminal Organizations (TCO) based in Mexico (drug cartels) are responsible for the flow of opioids across the border into the United States and Ohio and that they are also responsible for the proliferation of human trafficking in the United States, particularly Ohio, as part and parcel of their drug trafficking operations. The measure points out that drug cartels conduct operations on U.S. soil in furtherance of drug and human trafficking and that abuse of opioids and human trafficking are direct threats to the economy, well being and overall vitality of the state of Ohio and its citizens. “The acting administrator of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, Uttam Dhillon, recently declared Mexican drug trafficking organizations are the biggest criminal threat the United States faces today,” the Ohio resolution states.
The measure further points out that the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes the U.S. Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Attorney General, to designate an organization as an FTO when certain criteria are met. Drug cartels meet the criteria, Ohio lawmakers assert, because they are foreign in nature, engage in or retain the capability and intent to engage in terrorism and threaten the security of American citizens and the national defense, foreign relations and economic interests of the United States.
Judicial Watch made parallel arguments in a White Paper published earlier this year. In it, Judicial Watch’s investigative team provides comprehensive documentation that Mexican drug cartels, notoriously sophisticated criminal operations, undoubtedly meet the U.S. government’s requirements to be designated FTOs. The criteria for FTO designation require that organizations be foreign, engage in terrorism or terrorist activity or possess the capability and intent to do so and pose a threat to U.S. nationals or U.S. national security. Mexican drug cartels are inherently foreign, routinely commit criminal acts within the statutory definition of terrorism and arguably represent a more immediate and ongoing threat to U.S. national security than any of the currently designated FTOs on the State Department list.
Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle don’t want you to think about that as you consider border security. For your family’s safety, you should.
https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/weekly-updates/deep-state-cash-for-bruce-ohr/