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.
Why Are We Allowing The Chinese To Build Smartphone That The Military Is Using?
The three military exchange services pulled all smartphones made by Chinese electronics manufacturers Huawei and ZTE from stores around the world and banned their sale because of the security risks the devices pose, the Pentagon said Wednesday.
The Defense Department’s undersecretary for personnel and readiness issued a ban of “all Huawei and ZTE cellphones, personal mobile internet modems and related products from locations worldwide,” DOD spokesman Maj. Dave Eastburn said an email to Stars and Stripes.
“Given the security concerns associated with these devices, as expressed by senior U.S. intelligence officials, it was not prudent for the Department’s exchange services to continue selling these products to our personnel,” Eastburn said. He added that DOD is “evaluating the situation” to see if any additional security measures are needed, including an outright ban on use of the phones by servicemembers.
Stars and Stripes first reported last week that an Army and Air Force Exchange Service concession at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, had been selling the mobile electronic devices on base. The products were also found for sale at U.S. bases in other overseas locations.
In February, the director of national intelligence, along with the heads of the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency all testified before a Senate committee that Americans should not use Huawei or ZTE products because of security concerns.
Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, is a private company started by a former People’s Liberation Army officer. U.S. intelligence officials say the company has very close ties to China’s government.
FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that Huawei products give the Chinese government the ability to gather or alter sensitive corporate and military information undetected.
The concern about Huawei first focused on routers, switches and other high-bandwidth commercial products; it later expanded to consumer mobile phones. They are already banned for official government use in most cases.
Huawei has been the target of numerous U.S. regulations and laws meant to address national security concerns, such as a 2013 law that required federal law enforcement agencies to sign off on certain purchases of its products by government agencies.
Huawei spokesmen have repeatedly denied claims the company’s devices pose any security risks. Huawei phones are used commonly throughout Europe, and the company is in the middle of a worldwide promotional campaign for its latest phone series, the P20, released last month.
Still, the Chinese devices “may pose an unacceptable risk to (the) department’s personnel, information and mission,” Eastburn said.
New rules proposed by the Federal Communications Commission would bar U.S. telecommunications companies that receive FCC subsidies from buying products from foreign companies with security concerns. Companies have yet to be named, but Huawei and ZTE are both expected to make the list of banned manufacturers. A bill introduced in January by Rep. Michael Conway, a Republican from Texas, would make it illegal for U.S. government contractors to use any Huawei equipment.
Huawei also makes personal mobile Internet modems, called “pucks,” which in recent years have been sold to U.S. troops at a coalition base near Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region. Some soldiers may have purchased similar devices made by ZTE.
ZTE was sanctioned by the U.S. government for violating trade embargoes by sending U.S.-made components to Iran inside its devices. Huawei is currently the subject of a similar investigation by the Justice Department.
Eastburn said the Pentagon deferred to command officials for additional guidance on operational security matters, but he said troops should watch out for news of potentially compromised electronics.
“Servicemembers should be mindful of the media coverage about the security risks posed by the use of these devices, regardless of where they were purchased,” he said.
An associate of Arizona Sen. John McCain is invoking his Fifth Amendment rights in order to avoid revealing information to Congress about the Steele dossier.
David J. Kramer, a former State Department official, pleaded the fifth in response to a subpoena issued in December by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Fox News reported.
In a Dec. 19 interview with the committee, Kramer said that he had information about some of the sources of information in the dossier, which was written by former British spy Christopher Steele and financed by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Kramer learned the information in Nov. 2016, after traveling to London to meet with Steele. Kramer and McCain, a Republican, first learned of the dossier earlier that month after meeting with an associate of Steele’s.
After the London meeting, Steele provided a copy of the dossier to Kramer with instructions to share it with McCain. The senator then provided a copy of the document to then-FBI Director James Comey during a Dec. 9, 2016, meeting.
The House Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena on Dec. 27 to compel Kramer to discuss the dossier’s sources.
Kramer, who was a director at the McCain Institute and now works for Florida International University, has avoided speaking publicly about his handling of the dossier. There has also been widespread speculation that he is BuzzFeed’s source for the document. The website published the dossier on Jan. 10, 2017.
In addition to his interview with the Intelligence Committee, Kramer was deposed in December as part of a lawsuit filed against BuzzFeed for publishing the dossier. Kramer’s lawyers have requested that his deposition in that case be sealed.
Steele, McCain and Fusion GPS, the firm that hired Steele to write the dossier, have all denied being BuzzFeed’s source. Kramer is the only person known to have handled the completed dossier who has not denied providing it to BuzzFeed.
Kramer and his attorney have not responded to numerous requests for comment.
McCain Associate Who Handled Dossier Asks Judge To Seal Deposition
An associate of Arizona Sen. John McCain’s who handled the dossier is asking a federal judge to block the release of a videotape and transcript of a deposition he recently gave in a lawsuit related to the salacious document.
David Kramer, a former State Department official and former director at the McCain Institute for International Leadership, filed a motion in federal court in Florida asking a judge for a protective order to block the public release of his deposition.
Kramer was deposed last month by lawyers for a Russian businessman suing BuzzFeed News for publishing the dossier. The lawyers for the businessman, Aleksej Gubarev, are interested in Kramer because he is one of just a few people known to have handled the dossier after it was completed by former British spy Christopher Steele and before its Jan. 10, 2017 publication.
Gubarev’s attorneys want to find out whether BuzzFeed’s source gave any warnings about the veracity of the dossier and whether it was verified or unverified.
Steele, McCain and Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that commissioned the dossier on behalf of Democrats, have all denied being BuzzFeed’s source.
Kramer has not commented publicly on the issue.
Kramer’s lawyer, Marcos Jiminez, argued in a motion to seal that the release of the deposition would jeopardize his personal safety, make him subject to hounding from the press, and conflict with congressional investigations looking into the dossier.
Kramer was interviewed by the House Intelligence Committee last month and has also met with the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“Mr. Kramer seeks to prevent the Plaintiffs from sharing his videotaped deposition and accompanying transcript beyond the instant litigation,” wrote Jiminez.
He asserted that Kramer’s deposition in the BuzzFeed lawsuit “would reveal the extent of the Congressional Committees’ knowledge regarding the information provided by Mr. Kramer in closed-door sessions.”
Jimenez also argues that should Kramer’s deposition be released to the public, he “will be hounded by the press.”
Kramer and McCain first learned of the dossier shortly after the 2016 election while attending the Halifax International Security Forum. On the sidelines of that event, Kramer and McCain had a conversation with Sir Andrew Wood, a former British ambassador to Russia and associate of Steele’s.
Kramer then traveled to London to meet with Steele. While there, the pair made arrangements for Kramer to obtain the dossier back in the U.S. and to provide a copy to McCain.
McCain shared an incomplete version of the dossier with then-FBI Director James Comey on Dec. 9, 2016. The Republican was unaware at the time that Comey and the FBI were already aware of Steele’s report. FBI agents met with the ex-spy multiple times prior to the election.
Steele published his final dossier memo on Dec. 13, 2016. It is that document which alleges that Gubarev used two of his web-hosting companies to hack into the Democratic National Committee’s computer systems prior to the election. The dossier also alleges that Gubarev was recruited under duress by Russia’s spy services. He denies all of the allegations. In addition to suing BuzzFeed, he is suing Steele in London, where the former spy is based.
In court filings there, Steele has acknowledged that the Dec. 13 memo contained unverified information.
As of the beginning of this month, Steele and Fusion GPS have dodged requests for depositions from Gubarev’s lawyers.
David Kramer Motion to Seal deposition in BuzzFeed lawsuit by Chuck Ross on Scribd
