This MoFo got some balls to be talking about “Derelict in His Duties.
On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” former US Attorney General Eric Holder argued that there is an obstruction of justice case against President Trump and Tom Steyer is correct that President Trump is “derelict in his duties.
Holder stated, “I think that you technically have an obstruction of justice case that already exists. And I’ve known Bob Mueller for 20-30 years, my guess is he is just trying to make the case as good as he possibly can. … But I think Steyer is absolutely right, in the sense that Trump is derelict in his duties. We were attacked.
Why is this bastard not in jail?
I mean, it wasn’t a physical attack. It was an electronic attack on the most vital of our systems. And he’s done absolutely nothing to prepare us for what is to come. Because they’re still coming. They’re going to come in 2018. They’re going to come in 2020. And he’s done nothing to hold the Russians accountable, in spite of the fact that, in this dysfunctional world we have — this dysfunctional Congress, passed sanctions, that he has refused to implement. And that, for me, is breathtaking, unforgivable, and ultimately, something the American people have to hold him responsible for.”
The FBI will not expedite the release of documents about secret meetings between Comey and Obama
Comey held a secret Oval Office meeting with Obama on Jan. 5, 2017
TheDCNF requested records of all meetings between the two
The FBI states it will not expedite the release of documents about secret meetings between FBI Director James Comey and former President Barack Obama, according to a letter the bureau sent to The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Such information is not “a matter of widespread and exceptional media interest in which there exists possible questions about the government’s integrity which affects public confidence,” David Hardy, the section chief for the bureau’s Record/Information Dissemination Section, told TheDCNF in a Feb. 26 letter.
TheDCNF, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), requested records of all meetings between Comey and Obama and sought an “expedited process” as provided under the act when issues are of great interest to the media and the records address issues pertaining to government integrity. TheDCNF FOIA request was filed Feb. 16, 2018.
The issue prompting the FOIA request was the disclosure Comey held a secret Oval Office meeting with Obama on Jan. 5, 2017. Comey never divulged the meeting to Congress.
Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, former deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and former Vice President Joe Biden also attended the meeting.
The National Archives revealed the existence of the meeting and released a declassified version of an email Rice sent to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Rice wrote an email to herself about the secret Jan. 5 meeting with Comey on Inauguration Day Jan. 20, 2017, as President Donald Trump was being sworn into office. The email suggested Comey may have misled Congress and was attempting to cover up the extent of his relationship with Obama.
Christopher Bedford, TheDCNF’s editor-in-chief, called the FBI denial “shameful.”
“The FBI just told us that Director James Comey potentially lying to Congress should not be of interest to us, that it doesn’t speak to their ‘integrity,’ and that it shouldn’t impact America’s ‘confidence’ in them,” Bedford said. “They said this with a straight face. We disagree, we think the American people disagree, and we think it’s absolutely shameful.”
Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and subcommittee chairman, and Lindsey Graham released the Rice email after they received it from the National Archives.
“President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation with FBI Director Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval Office,” Rice stated in the email on Jan. 5.
The President urged Comey to proceed “by the book” on the Russian investigation, according to Rice.
Grassley of Iowa and Graham of South Carolina wrote to Rice in a Feb. 8 letter saying the email seemed “odd” to them.
“It strikes us as odd that, among your activities in the final moments on the final day of the Obama administration, you would feel the need to send yourself such an unusual email purporting to document a conversation involving President Obama,” the two wrote.
“Despite your claim that President Obama repeatedly told Mr. Comey to proceed ‘by the book,’ substantial questions have arisen about whether officials at the FBI, as well as at the Justice Department and the State Department, actually did proceed ‘by the book,’” the two senators continued.
Comey claimed in June 8, 2017, testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence he had only two face-to-face meetings with the president in which they were alone.
“I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) – once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016,” Comey’s opening statement read.
The qualifier that he had meetings with Obama “alone” permitted the former director to suggest he only met with the former president on two occasions.
TheDCNF filed its FOIA request before the bureau “seeking records that identify and describe all meetings between former FBI Director James Comey and President Barack Obama. This records request is for all meetings with President Obama alone or with meetings with the President in the company of other administration officials.”
TheDCNF requested records to include all Comey “logs, director appointment schedules, emails and memos outlining the meetings with the former President along with administration officials,” adding, the records “should list the date of the meeting, location, topic and meeting participants.”
TheDCNF stated it sought an “expedited request” for producing the records.
“The issue of Director Comey’s meetings with President Obama is a key troubling issue for Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley,” TheDCNF wrote in its application for the expedited processing. TheDCNF attached to Grassly-Graham letter to Rice in the FOIA request for expediting handling.
Hardy said TheDCNF failed to meet its standards for expedited processing as provided under 28 CFR 16.5 (e)(1)(iv).
“You have not provided enough information concerning the statutory requirements permitting expedition: therefore your request is denied,” he told TheDCNF.
DOJ’s internal watchdog to criticize former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe
McCabe authorized leaks to the media, according to new reports
The former deputy director also reportedly misled watchdog investigators about the media disclosures
McCabe stepped down from his position in January
The Department of Justice’s internal watchdog will criticize former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe for authorizing leaks to the media and giving misleading statements to investigators about doing so, according to two new reports.
McCabe, 49, authorized FBI officials to speak to the media for articles prior to the 2016 election, including one about an ongoing investigation into the Clinton Foundation, according to a report being prepared by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
The FBI No. 2 also misled watchdog investigators when they initially asked about the media disclosures, according to The Washington Post.
THE WASHINGTON POST STORY:
“Report said to fault FBI’s former No. 2 for approving improper media disclosure, misleading inspector general
The Justice Department inspector general is preparing a damaging report on former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, alleging he was responsible for approving an improper media disclosure, two people familiar with the matter said. One of the people said McCabe will also be accused of misleading investigators about his actions.
The report is a part of Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s broad review of the FBI and Justice Department’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
During that work, inspector general’s investigators found that McCabe had authorized the disclosure of information to the Wall Street Journal for an October 2016 story that examined feuding inside the FBI and Justice Department around the handling of a separate investigation into Clinton’s family foundation, two people familiar with the case said.
Those probing the matter believe that McCabe, who stepped down in January, misled them when they initially inquired about the subject, though one person familiar with the forthcoming report said McCabe disputes that he intentionally misled investigators.
It is unclear how McCabe is said to have misled investigators. The inspector general’s findings on the media disclosure were first reported by the New York Times.
Through a representative, McCabe declined to comment. A spokesman for the inspector general also declined to comment.
Horowitz’s report is almost certain to be used by President Trump, who has railed against leaks and made McCabe a particular target of his ire in recent months. McCabe, 49, briefly served as acting FBI director after President Trump fired James B. Comey from the job, and much like the man he succeeded, McCabe soon became a lightning rod in the political battles over the FBI, Clinton and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 election.
The 2016 Wall Street Journal report came just as the FBI had reopened the Clinton email investigation on the eve of the presidential election — a matter that was separate from the Clinton Foundation case but had parallels in the way it was fraught with politics.
The Journal’s story was notable for the level of detail it contained about internal law enforcement debates, and its revelation of specific information about an ongoing criminal case was considered by the inspector general to be particularly problematic. It presents McCabe as a complicated figure — one who at times is seen by those lower in the bureau as standing in the way of the Clinton Foundation investigation, though he also seems to stand up to Justice Department leaders.
The Journal reported that McCabe retorted to a Justice Department official upset to learn of steps the FBI had taken in the Clinton Foundation investigation, “Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?” That would contradict any attempt by Trump or the GOP to claim that he was favoring the Democratic presidential candidate.
The Journal’s story was written by Devlin Barrett, now a reporter at The Washington Post. Spokesmen for the Journal did not return an email message. Recently released text messages from an FBI agent and FBI lawyer involved in the Clinton email case show that two days before the story was published, the lawyer, Lisa Page, and the FBI’s top spokesman, Michael Kortan, were on the phone with Barrett for an extended conversation.
Page worked in the FBI general counsel’s office and with McCabe, and she was briefly detailed to Mueller’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 election. An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment, and Page’s lawyer did not respond to messages Thursday night.
Kortan, who has since left the FBI, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Background briefings with high-level government officials are common in Washington, particularly when reporters already have information and agencies hope to fill in the gaps on limited, and potentially misleading, facts. But law enforcement officials are generally instructed not to reveal ongoing criminal investigations.
While the inspector general uncovered allegations specific to McCabe during his broader look at the Clinton email case, his report on the FBI official is not likely to be the only one the work produces. Horowitz is also examining broad allegations of misconduct involving Comey, the public statement he made recommending that the case be closed without charges and his decision on the eve of the election to reveal to Congress that the FBI had resumed its work.
Horowitz has said publicly he is going to release that report in March or April.
It was not immediately clear whether Comey knew about McCabe’s alleged authorization to disclose information to the media. Asked in May 2017 at a congressional hearing whether he had “ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation” or if he had “ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation,” Comey replied, “Never” and “No.”
Late last month, Comey defended the man he picked to be his top deputy, writing on Twitter that McCabe, “stood tall over the last 8 months, when small people were trying to tear down an institution we all depend on. He served with distinction for two decades.”
In May, after Comey’s firing, Trump asked McCabe in an Oval Office meeting whom he had voted for in the 2016 election, and vented over donations McCabe’s wife, who ran as a Democrat for a seat in the Virginia legislature, had received from the political action committee of Terry McAuliffe.
McAuliffe, then the governor of Virginia, is an ally of Clinton, and McCabe, after his wife’s loss in the race, would go on to supervise the probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server.
In the months that followed that conversation, Trump repeatedly took aim at McCabe in private and on Twitter, asking why his attorney general had not removed him from his post and remarking in Decemberthat the then-No. 2 official was “racing the clock to retire with full benefits.”
McCabe had long planned to retire March 18, when he became eligible to receive his benefits, but in late January, he surprised the bureau when he abruptly stepped down. The move came after a private meeting in which FBI Director Christopher A. Wray expressed concern to McCabe about what the inspector general had found.
“My conviction to adhering to process is similarly matched by my conviction to holding people accountable,’’ Wray wrote later in a message to staff that thanked McCabe for his “years of dedicated, selfless and brave service to the FBI and the American people.”
McCabe is still expected to formally retire in March. It was not immediately clear whether the inspector general’s report would affect that.”
The New York Times also reported details of Horowitz’s report, which is expected to be released in March or April.
NEW YORK TIMES STORY:
“Andrew McCabe, Ex-Deputy Director of F.B.I., Will Be Faulted for Leaks
WASHINGTON — A Justice Department review is expected to criticize the former F.B.I. deputy director, Andrew G. McCabe, for authorizing the disclosure of information about a continuing investigation to journalists, according to four people familiar with the inquiry.
Such a damning report would give President Trump new ammunition to criticize Mr. McCabe, who is at the center of Mr. Trump’s theory that “deep state” actors inside the F.B.I. have been working to sabotage his presidency. But Mr. McCabe’s disclosures to the news media do not fit neatly into that assumption: They contributed to a negative articleabout Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration’s Justice Department — not Mr. Trump.
The department’s inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, has zeroed in on disclosures to The Wall Street Journal as part of a wide-ranging investigation into, among other things, how the F.B.I. approached the 2016 inquiry into Mrs. Clinton’s handling of classified information. Mr. Horowitz has said he expects to release a report this month or next.
Mr. McCabe, under pressure from the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, stepped down as the deputy director in late January amid concerns over the coming report.
The findings have potentially serious ramifications for the F.B.I., which is in the middle of a special counsel investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. Though the report is not expected to focus on that, some of the same agents — including Mr. McCabe — handled both the Russia case and the Clinton inquiry. A report that questions the judgment of those agents would give fodder for Mr. Trump and his supporters to step up their attacks on the F.B.I.
A spokesman for Mr. Horowitz declined to comment. Mr. McCabe also declined to comment. He and his allies have steadfastly maintained that he did nothing improper and cooperated fully with the inspector general.
In October 2016, The Wall Street Journal revealed a dispute between F.B.I. and Justice Department officials over how to proceed in an investigation into the financial dealings of the Clinton family’s foundation. The article revealed a closed-door meeting during which senior Justice Department officials were dismissive of the evidence and declined to authorize subpoenas or grand jury activity. Some F.B.I. agents, the article said, believed that Mr. McCabe had put the brakes on the investigation.
Others rejected that notion. The Journal, citing sources including “one person close to Mr. McCabe,” revealed a tense conversation with a senior Justice Department official in which Mr. McCabe insisted that the F.B.I. had the authority to press ahead with the investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
The inspector general has concluded that Mr. McCabe authorized F.B.I. officials to provide information for that article, according to the four people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the report before it is published. The public affairs office had arranged a phone call to discuss the case, the people said. Mr. McCabe, as deputy director, had the authority to engage the news media.
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Such calls are common practice across the federal government when officials believe that journalists have only part of the story. Rather than let incomplete or inaccurate coverage circulate, officials often try to fill out the picture or provide a defense. But Justice Department rules prohibit the dissemination of confidential information, and the inspector general’s report is expected to criticize Mr. McCabe for disclosing the existence of a continuing investigation to The Journal.
When an inquiry uncovers evidence that an agent has violated Justice Department regulations, the inspector general typically refers the matter to the F.B.I.’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which handles questions of punishment.
It is unclear whether the inspector general will identify others who spoke about the Clinton investigation. But Mr. McCabe is by far the most prominent subject. Mr. Trump has taunted him on Twitter, writing in December that he “is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!” Mr. McCabe is eligible to retire March 18.
Mr. Trump has animosity toward Mr. McCabe for several reasons, including his close ties to the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, whom Mr. Trump fired last year. But the president is particularly bothered by the fact that Mr. McCabe’s wife, Jill, ran as a Democrat in a failed campaign for a State Senate seat in Virginia. Her campaign received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from a political committee run by Terry McAuliffe, the Virginia governor at the time and a longtime ally of the Clintons.
Later, after Mrs. McCabe lost the race, Mr. McCabe was promoted to deputy director and oversaw the Clinton investigation. Though Mr. McCabe sought ethics and legal advice about whether to recuse himself, some in the F.B.I. considered his involvement a conflict of interest. Ultimately, amid scrutiny from the news media, Mr. Comey pressured Mr. McCabe to recuse himself. The inspector general is examining whether Mr. McCabe should have done so earlier.
Mr. Trump has seized on that issue in repeatedly criticizing Mr. McCabe, a lifelong Republican who did not vote in the 2016 election. In face-to-face meetings with Mr. McCabe, the president questioned how he had voted and needled him about his wife. In one instance, he called Mrs. McCabe “a loser,” according to people familiar with the conversation, which was first reported by NBC News.
Mr. McCabe’s allies at the F.B.I. say that Mr. Trump is also eager to discredit Mr. McCabe because he can corroborate Mr. Comey’s accounts of meetings with Mr. Trump.
Mr. McCabe rose quickly through the F.B.I. ranks and was seen as a new model for the second-in-command when he was promoted in 2016. The F.B.I. had transformed from a law-and-order agency to an integral part of the nation’s intelligence apparatus, and Mr. McCabe, who graduated from Duke and Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, was picked not based on a career of street work but based on his intellect and decision-making.
That won him equal parts praise and disdain inside the F.B.I., with longtime agents accusing him of having ascended too quickly.
Mr. McCabe is on leave while he awaits retirement. He was succeeded by David L. Bowdich, the acting F.B.I. deputy director.
McCabe stepped down as deputy director in January after FBI Director Christopher Wray was briefed on Horowitz’s findings. An Obama appointee, Horowitz has been investigating the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email investigation since Jan. 2017.
Among the leaks authorized by McCabe was one to The Wall Street Journal for an Oct. 30, 2016 article detailing an internal FBI and Justice Department battle over the Clinton Foundation investigation.
Some sources for the article suggested that McCabe issued a “stand down” order on the investigation. Other pro-McCabe sources portrayed him in a more positive light.
One source described an August 2016 conversation that McCabe had with a Justice Department official who thought the Clinton Foundation probe was a dead end.
“Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?” McCabe asked the official, according to the source.
The sources for the article have not been identified, but one McCabe subordinate was in contact with Devlin Barrett, the reporter who wrote the article for TheWSJ.
Lisa Page, an FBI attorney, sent text messages to FBI agent Peter Strzok discussing her conversations with Barrett. Horowitz discovered Strzok and Page’s text messages as part of his investigation. The discovery led to Strzok’s removal from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
While McCabe’s position allowed him to speak with the media, Horowitz seemingly deemed it problematic that he authorized surrogates to discuss an ongoing investigation.
As for misleading statements about the leaks, The Post reports that McCabe claims that he did not intentionally mislead investigators.
President Donald Trump will likely be pleased with the report, given his public spats with McCabe. Trump has criticized McCabe over campaign contributions that his wife, Jill McCabe, received for a Virginia state Senate race in 2015 from then-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
McAuliffe, a staunch ally of the Clintons, directed hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to McCabe’s unsuccessful campaign. The donations drew attention, in part, because McAuliffe was under FBI investigation over campaign contributions he received from a Chinese billionaire.
McCabe recused himself from that investigation. He also recused himself from the Clinton probe shortly before the 2016 election, after TheWSJ reported the McAuliffe donations. McCabe became involved in the Clinton investigation in February 2016, after his wife’s campaign had ended.
Trump is a insecure man that needs approval. Gun Control does not work and the FBI and the Sheriff department dropped the damn ball not the guns.
While meeting with lawmakers on Wednesday, President Trump discussed gun violence restraining orders that would give law enforcement the ability to remove weapons from people who are reported to be dangers to themselves or others by obtaining a court order, but stated, “I like taking the guns early.” He further expressed openness to “take the guns first, go through due process second.”
After Vice President Mike Pence referenced gun violence restraining orders, Trump stated, “Or, Mike, take the firearms first, and then go to court. Because that’s another system. Because a lot of times, by the time you go to court, it takes so long to go to court, to get the due process procedures. I like taking the guns early. Like, in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida, he had a lot of firearms — they saw everything. To go to court would have taken a long time. So, you could do exactly what you’re saying, but take the guns first, go through due process second.”
Fire this Globalist metrosexual fraud. This is pure nepotism.
The White House said Jared Kushner will not be affected by any policy changes made regarding security clearances, even though he still has an interim security clearance 13 months into the job.
“Nothing that has taken place will affect the valuable work that Jared is doing,” Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said at the White House briefing on Tuesday.
Chief of Staff John Kelly last week ordered changes to how the White House manages security clearance investigations, after staffer Rob Porter continued to access top secret material even after claims of domestic abuse by two ex-wives were reported to the FBI.
Porter had been working under an interim security clearance, raising scrutiny over the 30 to 40 White House staffers who are also working with interim security clearances, including the president’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner.
The new policy limits new interim clearances to a maximum of 270 days, and cuts off any Top Secret or Sensitive-Compartmented-Information (TS/SCI) level interim clearances for individuals whose investigations or adjudications have been pending since June 1, 2017, or before.
That new policy would presumably affect Kushner, who currently holds an interim TS/SCI security clearance that has been pending since he joined the White House more than a year ago. Kushner has reportedly requested more intelligence information than almost every other White House official outside of the National Security Council. He is allowed to see the nation’s most-guarded intelligence, and access the presidential daily briefing.
On Monday, CNN reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s interest in Kushner had expanded beyond his Russian contacts, into meetings during the transition period with foreign investors to shore up financing for a building backed by his family’s firm.
Sanders batted down repeated questions from reporters over Kushner’s security clearance, given his many powerful roles in the administration and the sensitivity of some of his tasks, on everything from working on the Middle East Peace Process to modernizing the federal government’s use of technology.
“I”m not aware of any red flags,” Sanders said.
Trump critics have questioned Kushner’s access to the nation’s most secured intelligence despite his lack of a permanent security clearance for months. Last week, left-wing watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics filed a complaint, calling on the White House to revoke Kushner’s interim clearance.
California Democrat Rep. Ted Lieu has questioned Kushner’s lack of a clearance on a near-weekly basis:
Ted Lieu
✔
@tedlieu
Today is #PresidentsDay2018. That means we all need to ask again: Why does son-in-law of @POTUS still have a security clearance?
Also, did Kushner cause White House to initially turn against Qatar because they rejected his demand to finance the troubled loan at 666 Fifth Ave?
Last week, National Background Investigations Bureau Director Charles Phalen toldlawmakers that he had “never seen that level of mistakes” when asked about Kushner’s security clearance application.
Kushner has revised his security clearance questionnaire multiple times, to include meetings with foreign officials.
Some have also questioned whether Porter was allowed to remain in the job for so long due to his connection with Kushner. Porter attended Harvard with Kushner, according to multiple reports.
I will not hold my breath on anyone in the Obama Administration going to jail.
Friday on Fox News Channel’s “The Ingraham Angle,” host Laura Ingraham gave her take on the indictments handed down by special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe regarding interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Ingraham told viewers the indictments illustrated how Russia was still a threat to the United States despite then-President Barack Obama’s dismissal during the 2012 presidential election. She also said Mueller should interview 2016 Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State John Kerry, former National Security Advisor Susan Rice, former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes and former President Barack Obama as part of his investigation.
Partial transcript as follows:
INGRAHAM: We finally have indictments in the Mueller investigation related to meddling in the 2016 election and the only ones being charged are Russians. A federal grand jury has now indicted 13 Russian individuals and companies for interfering in the 2016 election.
They are charged with a bunch of things like creating fake ads, staging pro and anti-Trump campaign events and also setting up bogus-run organizations, but they’re not accused of rigging the election for Trump, but instead of waging information warfare to sow discord in the political system.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the indictments and added this important caveat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROD ROSENSTEIN, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: There is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity. There is no allegation in the indictment that the charge conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Did you hear that? No American knowingly took part in the meddling and the plot had no effect on the outcome of the election. The facts, as we know them right now, support the president’s argument, an argument we have been making on this show for months, that there was no Russian collusion.
Trump took a bit of a victory lap, tweeting today, “Russia started their anti-U.S. campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for president. The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong. No collusion.”
Well, it certainly looks that way, but we don’t know for sure what else Mueller may have up his sleeve. Though, I’ll tell you who this totally vindicates. Conservatives and Republicans who have been warning people for years about how devious the Russians can be in this situation.
Remember, when President Obama sarcastically mocked Mitt Romney’s Russia warning back in 2012 during the presidential debate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FORMER PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: When you’re asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia. Not al Qaeda, you said Russia. In the 1980s or now, calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the cold war has been over for 20 years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Now, Obama was so convinced of that, his DOJ and FBI did next to nothing about the Russian skulduggery. I love that word. His State Department actually approved the visas for the Russian operatives that were indicted by Mueller today.
His FBI began spying on Trump Campaign Advisor Carter Page with a FISA warrant in the fall of 2016. Now details in today’s indictment do point to vindication for the Trump team. This is Jonathan Turley from tonight’s “Special Report.”
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN TURLEY: This makes more sense than the narratives that everyone has been throwing around in conspiracies. This began in 2014, began before the presidential election. The Russians were taking targets of opportunity and shooting at everybody in the election but certainly working more against Hillary Clinton. But what it does show is that they did a really quite impressive job in finding this cyber trail to these individuals.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: I’ll say. And the indictment describes rallies that took place after the election, both in support of and against Trump, and by the way, some of them happened on the same day, all allegedly promoted by these Russian accounts.
You see this ad? Well, according to “Buzzfeed,” this anti-Trump rallies staged just four days after the election was promoted by something called “Black Matters U.S.,” a social media campaign thought to be organized by Russians.
So, why would Trump collude with Russians to stage anti-Trump rallies? Does that make any sense? Here’s the bottom line. The Trump campaign did not know about Russian interference in the election. But the Obama administration certainly did and may have in fact enabled it.
Given that we already know Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC paid for that fake Russian dossier, it’s time for the special counsel to interview Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, and maybe even Barack Obama. I say it’s high time that we determine who really colluded with the Russians.
