Democrats and phony Republicans want us to believe it is not happening.
An undocumented Mexican immigrant who lived for years in a rural San Antonio suburb pleaded guilty Thursday to charges of fraud and identity theft, admitting he used a stolen identity to vote in several elections.
Enrique Salazar Ortiz, 63, would not tell federal agents how many times he had voted using the name of former San Antonio resident Jesse H. Vargas Jr., but Salazar did admit casting a ballot in the 2016 general election, according to the plea agreement.
But Bexar County records show a man with Vargas’ name and date of birth voted in every general election for the past 24 years, county elections administrator Jacque Callanen said Thursday.
“He’s been voting since at least 1994,” Callanen said. “Vargas” also voted in the 2008 Democratic primary, she said.
Vargas, now 57, could not be reached for comment Thursday, but a relative said that he hasn’t lived in Bexar County since he was in his teens, when his family moved to California. Vargas now lives in Arizona and told federal agents that he did not know Salazar nor give permission to use his name and date of birth, according to court documents.
Salazar’s lawyer, assistant federal public defender Molly Roth, said her client worked in construction, is married and has a daughter. Both his wife and daughter are U.S. citizens, she said.
Salazar’s scheme was discovered by the State Department when he mailed an application in December 2016 to renew a passport he had been using over the prior 10 years, court documents say. A fraud prevention manager referred the application to the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service because the Social Security number being used had been issued later in life, which is unusual, a criminal complaint affidavit said.
During the investigation, agents determined there were two people with the same name and date of birth but with different appearances, including the real Vargas, who had previously lived in San Antonio.
The agents raided Salazar’s home in Elmendorf on Aug. 24, 2017, and arrested him. Salazar told them he bought a U.S. birth certificate with Vargas’ identifying information on it for $20 and had used the identity ever since.
Salazar’s plea deal said Salazar admitted that he used Vargas’ information to get a passport in 2006 and used it to travel several times.
“When asked if he had ever voted, at first Mr. Salazar Ortiz was hesitant to answer, but when confronted with voting records, he indicated that he voted in the most recent election” on Nov. 8, 2016, the plea deal said.
The plea agreement said the voting records also showed Salazar had registered to vote multiple times.
In federal court Thursday, Salazar pleaded guilty to making a false statement in a passport application, which carries a maximum of 10 years in prison; unlawful voting by an alien, punishable by up to one year in jail; and aggravated identity theft, which carries a mandatory two years incarceration on top of any other charges.
As part of the deal, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Moore will dismiss two other charges, including false representation of U.S. citizenship and being an alien in unlawful possession of a firearm.
Salazar told U.S. District Judge Fred Biery that he was born in Veracruz, Mexico and did not have legal documents to be in the United States.
Biery asked Salazar if he knew what he was doing was illegal.
“Unfortunately, yes, I knew it was,” Salazar replied.
Biery set sentencing for Jan. 24.
When Will Obama Be Questioned On His Corrupt Administration?
A former top lawyer at the FBI provided “explosive” testimony to Congress on Wednesday regarding the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, lawmakers said.
James Baker, who served as the FBI’s general counsel until May, told Congress that a previously unidentified source provided information to the FBI for its investigation, which began on July 31, 2016.
“During the time that the FBI was putting — that [the Department of Justice] and FBI were putting together the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act surveillance warrant] during the time prior to the election — there was another source giving information directly to the FBI, which we found the source to be pretty explosive,” Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan said after a hearing, according to Fox News.
As the FBI’s top attorney, Baker was directly involved in handling applications for the FISA warrants granted against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Baker was interviewed behind closed doors as part of a congressional task force’s investigation into the FBI’s possible abuse of the FISA process. Republican lawmakers have expressed concerns that the Page FISAs relied heavily on the unverified Steele dossier.
The document, which was funded by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee, was cited extensively in the FBI’s applications to spy on Page.
“Some of the things that were shared were explosive in nature,” North Carolina GOP Rep. Mark Meadows told Fox regarding Baker’s interview. “This witness confirmed that things were done in an abnormal fashion. That’s extremely troubling.”
Jordan and Meadows did not provide additional details about what information Baker shared or who the FBI’s source was. They said that congressional investigators were not aware of the source until Baker’s testimony.
Meadows said earlier on Wednesday that he has seen evidence that “confidential human sources” used by the FBI “actually taped members within the Trump campaign.” (RELATED: Undercover FBI Sources Taped Trump Campaign)
“There is strong suggestions in that some of the text messages, emails, and so forth who was involved, that extraordinary measures were used to surveil,” Meadows told Hill.TV.
A man who dated Brett Kavanaugh’s primary accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, for six years claims she had no fear of flying, no fear of small spaces or rooms with single exits, and once used her psychology training to prepare a friend for a polygraph examination, according to a Tuesday Fox News report.
In a sworn statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee dated Tuesday, the California man claims to have met the then-Christine Blasey “in 1989 or 1990,” then had been romantically involved with her for about six years from 1992 to 1998. In that time, he claims to have witnessed Ford, then studying psychology, coach a close friend as she prepared for government administered polygraph exams. Fox News’s Shannon Bream posted a redacted version of the letter on Twitter:
BREAKING:Fox’s @johnrobertsFox obtains letter from Ford ex-boyfriend alleging:dated for 6 yrs, never told of sex assault, Ford coached friend on taking polygraph, flew frequently w/o expressing any fear of flying/tight spaces/limited exits.Doesn’t want to b/c “involved”.
The man’s claims appear to contradict Ford’s testimony under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, where she told outside counsel Rachel Mitchell that she “never” gave “tips or advice to somebody looking to take a polygraph test.”
The alleged ex-boyfriend also claims that Ford frequently flew, including in small propeller aircraft, without complaint over the course of their relationship and had no fear of small spaces or rooms with only one exit. Ford’s claims that phobias of these things have plagued her since the early 1980s as a result of a 17-year-old Kavanaugh attacking her have been central elements of her story.
Further, the man claims Ford never mentioned being a victim of sexual assault in the eight years they knew each other and never once mentioned Kavanaugh’s name. Finally, he claims their relationship ended amid infidelity and credit card fraud on her part. He does, however, claim that he “finds Ford believable” and did not “want to become i
nvolved” with the investigatory process.
Exactly when the Senate Judiciary Committee staff came into possession of the letter is not clear. Mitchell’s specific questioning about polygraph prepration during Ford’s committee testimony, however, may indicate committee staff had some knowledge of the allegations laid out in the letter at least as early as last week.
SOURCES: CHINA HACKED HILLARY CLINTON’S PRIVATE EMAIL SERVER
A Chinese-owned company penetrated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private server, according to sources briefed on the matter.
The company inserted code that forwarded copies of Clinton’s emails to the Chinese company in real time.
The Intelligence Community Inspector General warned of the problem, but the FBI subsequently failed to act, Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert said during a July hearing.
A Chinese-owned company operating in the Washington, D.C., area hacked Hillary Clinton’s private server throughout her term as secretary of state and obtained nearly all her emails, two sources briefed on the matter told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Chinese firm obtained Clinton’s emails in real time as she sent and received communications and documents through her personal server, according to the sources, who said the hacking was conducted as part of an intelligence operation.
The Chinese wrote code that was embedded in the server, which was kept in Clinton’s residence in upstate New York. The code generated an instant “courtesy copy” for nearly all of her emails and forwarded them to the Chinese company, according to the sources.
The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) found that virtually all of Clinton’s emails were sent to a “foreign entity,” Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, said at a July 12 House Committee on the Judiciary hearing. He did not reveal the entity’s identity, but said it was unrelated to Russia. (RELATED: Gohmert: Watchdog Found Clinton Emails Were Sent To ‘Foreign Entity’)
Two officials with the ICIG, investigator Frank Rucker and attorney Janette McMillan, met repeatedly with FBI officials to warn them of the Chinese intrusion, according to a former intelligence officer with expertise in cybersecurity issues, who was briefed on the matter. He spoke anonymously, as he was not authorized to publicly address the Chinese’s role with Clinton’s server.
Among those FBI officials was Peter Strzok, who was then the bureau’s top counterintelligence official. Strzok was fired this month following the discovery he sent anti-Trump texts to his mistress and co-worker, Lisa Page. Strzok didn’t act on the information the ICIG provided him, according to Gohmert.
Gohmert mentioned in the Judiciary Committee hearing that ICIG officials told Strzok and three other top FBI officials that they found an “anomaly” on Clinton’s server.
The former intelligence officer TheDCNF spoke with said the ICIG “discovered the anomaly pretty early in 2015.”
“When [the ICIG] did a very deep dive, they found in the actual metadata — the data which is at the header and footer of all the emails — that a copy, a ‘courtesy copy,’ was being sent to a third party and that third party was a known Chinese public company that was involved in collecting intelligence for China,” the former intelligence officer told TheDCNF.
“The [the ICIG] believe that there was some level of phishing. But once they got into the server something was embedded,” he said. “The Chinese are notorious for embedding little surprises like this.”
The intelligence officer declined to name the Chinese company.
“We do know the name of the company. There are indications there are other ‘cutouts’ that were involved. I would be in a lot of trouble if I gave you the name,” he told TheDCNF.
A government staff official who’s been briefed on the ICIG’s findings told TheDCNF that the Chinese state-owned firm linked to the hacking operates in Washington’s northern Virginia suburbs. The source was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.
The company that penetrated Clinton’s server was not a technology firm and it served as a “front group” for the Chinese government, the source told TheDCNF.
The Fairfax and Loudoun county governments told TheDCNF that 13 state-owned Chinese companies operate in the area. Of those, three were not technologically oriented.
Fairfax County Economic Development Authority communications manager Seth Livingston told TheDCNF that all of the nine firms operating in his county were there in 2009 when Clinton began as secretary of state.
“Our Asian folks believe that all of the companies have been around and known to us since that time period,” he said in an email.
“This is the most combed over subject in modern American political history,” Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill told TheDCNF. “The FBI spent thousands of hours investigating, and found no evidence of intrusion. That’s a fact.”
“But in an age where facts are alternative and truth isn’t truth, it’s no surprise that an outlet like the Daily Caller would try to distract us from very real and very immediate threats to our democracy brought by the man occupying the White House,” he continued.
Department of State Inspector General Steven A. Linick and then-ICIG I. Charles McCullough III scrutinized Clinton’s server in 2015. McCullough told Congress in July 2015 that her emails contained classified material.
“IC IG was involved in the classification review of certain information drawn from the private email server,” an agency spokeswoman told TheDCNF. She declined to comment further.
The two IGs asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether the classified information was compromised, according to a July 23, 2015, New York Times report based on unnamed senior government officials.
The FBI issued a referral to the Justice Department in July 2015. The bureau warned that classified information may have been disclosed to a foreign power or to one of its agents.
“FBIHQ, Counterespionage Section, is opening a full investigation based on specific articulated facts provided by an 811 referral from the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, dated July 6, 2015 regarding the potential compromise of classified information,” a July 10, 2015, FBI memo stated.
An 811 referral informs the FBI of classified information that was potentially released to a foreign power or agent of a foreign power.
“This investigation is also designated a Sensitive Investigative Matter (SIM) due to a connection to a current public official, political appointee or candidate,” the memo stated.
Then-FBI Deputy Director Mark F. Giuliano sent a follow-up memo on July 21, 2015, to President Barack Obama’s deputy attorney general, Sally Yates, about two conversations he had with her about the criminal referral.
“On 13 July 2015 and 20 July 2015, I verbally advised you of a Section 811(c) referral from the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community received by the FBI on 06 July 2015. The referral addressed the mishandling of classified information on the personal e-mail account and electronic media of a former high-level us Government official,” according to the FBI memo, which was hand delivered to Yates.
Justice Department spokesman Devin M. O’Malley declined to comment on this story.
Former FBI Director James Comey acknowledged in his recent book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,” that the FBI was conducting a criminal investigation into Clinton’s conduct.
London Center for Policy Research’s vice president of operations, retired Col. Anthony Shaffer, told TheDCNF that Clinton’s server was vulnerable to hacking.
“Look, there’s evidence based on the complete lack of security hygiene on the server. Fourteen-year-old hackers from Canada could have probably hacked into her server and left very little trace,” Shaffer said. “Any sophisticated organization is going to be able to essentially get in and then clean up their presence.”
And a former consultant to the U.S. trade representative, Claude Barfield, told TheDCNF: “The Chinese were in the process of really gaining technological competence in 2009 to 2010. This begins to really take off in the early years of the Obama administration. The Obama administration was kind of late and there was this slow reaction about how sophisticated the Chinese were.”
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.
