President Trump called the suspected mail bombs “terrorizing acts” and praised law enforcement officers for the arrest in Florida.
“We will prosecute them, him, her, whoever it may be, to the fullest extent of the law,” he said at a White House event. “We must never allow political violence to take root in America and I’m committed to doing everything in my power as president to stop it and stop it now.”
Authorities had been pursuing a lead that some of the devices could have been mailed from South Florida. After news of the arrest broke, FBI agents and other law enforcement personnel could be seen in news footage draping a blue tarp over a van in a South Florida parking lot before loading it onto a truck and driving it away.
According to someone familiar with the investigation, the suspect in custody lives in Florida near a facility through which the packages were mailed. It remains unclear if he acted alone or had help, this person said.
News of the arrest emerged hours after investigators recovered the latest explosive devices, packages sent to Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr.
The FBI said a package, “similar in appearance to the others” found this week, was addressed to Booker and located in Florida. A spokesman for Booker, a prominent Democrat and potential 2020 presidential candidate, declined to comment and referred questions to law enforcement.
Police in New York said they were responding to a suspicious package in midtown Manhattan, just blocks from where one of the explosive devices was found earlier this week at CNN’s offices in the Time Warner Center. The package was “safely removed” from the post office, police said.
A law enforcement official said that package was a device addressed to Clapper, a CNN contributor, and sent to him at the news network. This is the second time this week a suspected explosive was sent to CNN and addressed to a former intelligence official turned cable news commentator. A device sent to CNN’s New York offices and addressed to John Brennan, the former CIA director, was found in the mail room there, prompting an hours-long evacuation.
The package sent to Clapper was found at a mail-sorting facility in New York City, the law enforcement official said. CNN President Jeff Zucker sent a message to staffers confirming that a suspicious package addressed to CNN was intercepted at a post office, and he reiterated that “all mail to CNN domestic offices is being screened at off-site facilities.”
Clapper appeared on CNN shortly after news broke a package was addressed to him, saying he felt relief no one was harmed by that device.
“This is definitely domestic terrorism, no doubt about it in my mind,” he said. Clapper said anyone who has criticized Trump should take extra precautions when handling their mail, adding: “This is not going to silence the administration’s critics.”
Authorities had intensified their hunt for a serial mail bomber in recent days after suspected explosives were delivered to a string of political figures and others who have publicly clashed with Trump. On Thursday, the FBI said three suspected pipe bombs were found — one in actor Robert De Niro’s Manhattan office, and two in mail facilities in Delaware addressed to former vice president Joe Biden.
“I thank God no one’s been hurt, and I thank the brave and resourceful security and law enforcement people for protecting us,” De Niro said in a statement Friday before going on to urge people to vote.
The wave of packages began this week with an explosive device sent to George Soros, a billionaire activist known to fund pro-democracy and liberal political groups. Then came packages addressed to former president Barack Obama; former secretary of state Hillary Clinton; Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.); Eric Holder Jr., Obama’s first attorney general; and Brennan.
One of the packages was recovered at a South Florida office of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) because her name was listed as the return address. Current and former investigators have said this suggested she was a possible target of the attacks.
All of the bomber’s targets have clashed sharply with Trump at different times, and the spate of dangerous packages intensified the already full-throated political fights two weeks before congressional elections. Trump condemned the bombs on Wednesday before going on to blame the media for the anger seen in American society. He has also bristled at commentators who have highlighted his rhetoric when discussing the explosive devices, tweeting shortly after 3 a.m. Friday that CNN was “blaming me for the current spate of Bombs.”
The explosives prompted a sprawling, nationwide investigation. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, speaking in Washington on Friday, pledged that local, state and federal authorities were “working tirelessly to follow every lead” in the case.
“I can tell you this, we will find the person or persons responsible and we’re going to bring them to justice,” Sessions said.
The packages sent to public figures had many of the hallmarks of suspicious mail, including large block lettering and excessive postage aimed at making it harder to track, said Matthew Doherty, who formerly led the U.S. Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center. And the fact that none detonated provides investigators with considerable evidence, he said.
NYPD’s Total Containment vessel arrives as law enforcement respond to the scene of a suspicious package at a postal facility, Friday, Oct. 26, 2018 in New York. Two law enforcement officials say a package closely resembling parcels sent to critics of President Donald Trump has been found at the postal facility in Manhattan. The suspicious package was discovered by postal workers. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
“There’s a rich treasure trove of forensic information since they were found intact,” Doherty said. That means FBI investigators can “look for patterns such as the device, the technical expertise, the method of mailing, a whole host of great, rich forensic evidence that can be gathered.”
Officials on Thursday declined to say whether the devices were intended to detonate or to scare people, but they repeatedly urged the public to view them as if they could pose a threat.
“We are treating them as live devices,” NYPD Commissioner James P. O’Neill said at a news briefing, urging people not to touch packages they deem suspicious. “This is something that should be taken seriously.”
Authorities pleaded with the public to send in any tips, and William F. Sweeney Jr., assistant director in charge of the FBI New York field office, said people should remain vigilant, warning that more devices “have been or could be mailed.”
Law enforcement officials described the devices as PVC pipes stuffed with what appeared to be fireworks powder and glass. Electrical wires leading out of the pipe led to an electric timer taped to the pipe, according to law enforcement officials speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation.
The FBI said the packages found so far had shared characteristics, including manila envelopes with bubble-wrapped interiors. They all also had a half-dozen Forever stamps, computer-printed address labels and return addresses bearing the misspelled name of Wasserman Schultz, who chaired the Democratic National Committee during part of the 2016 presidential campaign.
He Is Completely Right! Investigate All Of The Bastards.
“At this point it seems the DOJ and FBI need to be investigating themselves,” Nunes wrote in the letter, which was obtained by Breitbart News.
Nunes said in the letter that several weeks ago the Justice Department informed the committee that basic investigatory documents (FBI Form FD-302s) subpoenaed on August 24 “did not exist.”
“However,” Nunes wrote, “shortly before my meeting with you in early December, DOJ subsequently located and produced numerous FD-302s pertaining to the Steele dossier, thereby rendering the initial response disingenuous at best.”
“As it turns out, not only did documents exist that were directly responsive to the Committee’s subpoenas, but they involved senior DOJ and FBI officials who were swiftly reassigned when their roles in matters under the Committee’s investigation were brought to light,” he said.
Nunes did not reference who those officials were, but it has been widely reported that senior FBI official Peter Strzok was removed from the special counsel and reassigned to human resources after Robert Mueller found he sent anti-Trump texts. Strzok had also played key roles in the Clinton email investigation and the FBI’s initial Russia probe.
Senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr was also removed from his position as associate deputy attorney general after it came to light that he had met with the author of the dossier as well as a co-founder of Fusion GPS, the firm behind it. His wife, Nellie Ohr, was also found to have worked for Fusion GPS.
FBI General Counsel James Baker is also being reassigned at the FBI.
Nunes said, given the content and impact of these “supposedly newly-discovered” documents, the committee was no longer able to accept the Justice Department’s refusal to provide other requested documents — FBI Form FD-1023s that document meetings between FBI officials and FBI confidential human sources.
Nunes is now demanding that the DOJ and FBI hand over all requested documents no later than January 3, 2018.
Those documents, he said, include but are not limited to:
• All responsive FD-1023s, including all reports that summarize meetings between FBI confidential human sources and FBI officials pertaining to the Steele dossier;
• All responsive FD-302s not previously provided to the Committee; and
•In addition to the FD-302s and FD-1023s, certain responsive analytical and reference documents that were specifically identified and requested by the Committee, and supposedly subject to imminent production, as of December 15.
If DOJ withholds any relevant documents, it must provide a written legal justification from Rosenstein personally, Nunes wrote. He also requested dates in January 2018 for interviews with:
• Former DOJ Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr;
• FBI Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) Peter Strzok;
• FBI Attorney James Baker;
• FBI Attorney Lisa Page;
• FBI Attorney Sally Moyer; and
• FBI Assistant Director for Congressional Affairs Greg Brower.
Nunes also noted other outstanding requests:
The Committee further reminds you of these other outstanding requests for information:
• Details concerning an apparent April 2017 meeting with the media involving DOJ/FBI personnel, including DOJ Attorney Andrew Weissman (due December 13) and
• The remaining text messages between SSA Strzok and Ms. Page (due December 15).
“Unfortunately, DOJ/FBI’s intransigence with respect to the August 24 subpoenas is part of a broader pattern of behavior that can no longer be tolerated,” Nunes wrote.
Nunes has threatened to begin drawing up a resolution to hold Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress.
GOP preps contempt resolution for top FBI, DOJ officials after missed Monday deadline
The House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday will begin writing a resolution holding top FBI officials in contempt of Congress after the agency missed a Monday deadline to turn over key evidence the committee has been seeking for months.
“We are moving forward with the contempt resolution,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., told the Washington Examiner Tuesday morning. He added that the panel is still negotiating with FBI and Justice Department officials to get the requested documents.
Nunes has accused the FBI and Department of Justice of a “months-long pattern … of stonewalling and obstructing this committee’s oversight work.”
Those accusations boiled over during the weekend, after stories were leaked to the New York Times and Washington Post saying that FBI agent Peter Strzok, a key investigator in the Trump-Russian probe, was removed from the Russia probe after exchanging text messages critical of Trump to another FBI agent he was involved with romantically. Republicans had been seeking information about why he was removed, but were never told anything by FBI or Justice Department directly.
Nunes had also been seeking information about the FBI and Justice Department’s use of the Steele dossier, which contains damning but unverified information about President Trump.
But the Strzok leak was the last straw, and Nunes announced Saturday he has ordered committee staff to begin drafting a contempt of Congress citation for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and for FBI Director Christopher Wray unless they complied with the panels’ requests for information by the close of business on Monday.
After the story broke, Nunes said, the FBI and Justice Department agreed to make some of the witnesses available, but are still withholding many documents and other evidence the Intelligence panel is seeking, an aide said.
Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said the department has given the panel hundreds of pages of classified documents and multiple briefings, and has now allowed Strzok and FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to meet with the panel.
While committee aides will start writing the contempt resolution Tuesday, Nunes has not set a date for the panel to consider the contempt charges.
If approved by the committee, the resolutions of contempt would be sent to the House floor for consideration, but only if Speaker Paul Ryan chooses to bring them up. One GOP source said Ryan supports the contempt resolution.
Contempt of Congress resolutions approved by the House are referred to the the Justice Department, but they are relatively rare.
The House voted in 2012 to hold then U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for withholding documents sought by the House Oversight Committee on the DOJ’s “Fast and Furious” operation that resulted in thousands of U.S. guns ending up in the hands of Mexican drug dealers.
These resolutions also are not always effective. For example, the Justice Department elected not to prosecute Holder over the contempt charge.
Trump lawyer: ‘The president cannot obstruct justice’
President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, John Dowd, revealed Monday a potential legal defense in the ongoing Russia probe, claiming that a president cannot obstruct justice.
“The president cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under (the Constitution’s Article II) and has every right to express his view of any case,” Dowd told NBC News Monday.
Dowd added that the president’s weekend tweet — which many have argued strengthened a potential obstruction of justice case for special counsel Robert Mueller — “did not admit obstruction.”
“That is an ignorant and arrogant assertion,” Dowd said.
His comments were first reported by Axios and came two days after Trump tweeted, “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI.”
“He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!” Trump wrote in his Saturday tweet — his first public comments about his former national security adviser after Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about speaking with Russian officials.
The tweet caused an uproar in Washington because it implied Trump knew Flynn had committed a felony — lying to the FBI — when he told then-FBI director James Comey to go easy on Flynn the day after the firing.
Interfering in the FBI’s investigation could be construed as obstructing justice, potentially creating legal jeopardy for Trump, some experts argued.
But within a few hours of the Saturday post, Dowd stepped in to say that he wrote the tweet, not the president.
Meanwhile, several lawmakers and legal experts immediately weighed in Monday morning to express their disagreement with Dowd’s position that the president cannot obstruct justice.
“I hope my Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate will take the lead on this issue and also on obstruction of justice. There is a credible case of obstruction of justice against Donald Trump,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“If you take the president’s own statement, his tweet that he knew Michael Flynn was lying to the FBI when he fired him, which means that he knew Michael Flynn committed a felony when he asked Comey to stop the investigation of him, and when he fired Comey when he refused to do so, and when he fired Sally Yates and when he called Michael Flynn in April to tell him to stay strong, all of these acts are to impede and obstruct justice,” he explained.
Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who was fired by Trump, acknowledged in an interview with NPR that charging a president with obstruction “is a very high bar, it’s a very high threshold, it’s a difficult thing, it’s never been done before.”
“But the mere fact that the president is the president doesn’t immunize him from an accusation of obstruction,” Bharara said.
The articles of impeachment against both former Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton included charges of obstruction of justice.
But another prominent legal expert defended Dowd’s theory.
“You cannot charge a president with obstruction of justice for exercising his constitutional right to fire Comey and his constitutional authority to tell the Justice Department who to investigate, who not to investigate,” Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz told Fox News Channel on Monday. “For obstruction of justice by the president, you need clearly illegal acts.”
“The president could’ve pardoned Flynn if he were really thinking about trying to end this investigation. He would’ve pardoned Flynn and then Flynn wouldn’t be cooperating with the other side and the president would’ve had the complete authority to do so,” he added. “So I think the fact that the president hasn’t pardoned Flynn even though he has the power to do so is very good evidence that there’s no obstruction of justice going on here.”
This heroine did the right thing. May her tribe increase
TAMPA, Fl. – A McDonald’s manager who gave police a loaded gun that led to the arrest of a suspect in a series of killings in Tampa will receive a $110,000 reward.
Delonda Walker’s tip led to Tuesday’s arrest of a man who police said killed four seemingly unconnected people in October and November in the city’s Seminole Heights neighborhood. The killings terrified residents, and police swarmed the area for weeks amid an intense search for the killer.
Police and victims’ families have praised Walker, the manager of a McDonald’s in Tampa’s Ybor City neighborhood, but there were questions over what the size of her reward would be.
But those questions were put to rest Friday.
Walker has already received about half of the $110,000 reward, according to Christina Barker, an assistant to Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn.
Police said Howell Donaldson III, an employee at the same McDonald’s, had put a firearm in a food bag and gave it to Walker for safekeeping on Tuesday. At about 2:40 p.m., Walker gave the firearm to a police officer in the fast-food restaurant, who then called for backup and detained Donaldson.
She also told police that Donaldson had expressed his intention to leave the state, according to a criminal affidavit.
That firearm was used in all four of the fatal shootings in Seminole Heights, according to the criminal affidavit. Donaldson admitted that the gun belonged to him, leading to his arrest, the affidavit said.
Donaldson is accused of killing Anthony Naiboa, Monica Hoffa, Benjamin Mitchell and Ronald Felton. He faces four counts of first-degree murder.
Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan said the gun was a big break in the case that led to the arrest.
“We’ve had other guns, but we knew this was the one,” he said Wednesday.
Dugan added that the employee who came forward did the right thing.
“The person who called us — I cannot thank them enough for standing up and doing the right thing and saying, ‘This doesn’t seem right, why does this person have a gun in a bag?’ ”
‘She’s a hero to all of us’
In a statement to CNN affiliate WFTS, Walker said she was “overwhelmed and surprised” by the events leading to Donaldson’s arrest.
“At this time, I am speaking exclusively with police and am appreciative that they were nearby and quickly acted upon the information I discovered and shared with the police officer,” she said. “I am also appreciative of the outpouring of support from the community. My thoughts are focused on the victims and their families and out of respect for them and the active investigation, please direct inquiries to the Tampa Police Department.”
Monica Hoffa’s family told WFTS that Walker was a hero for helping solve the case.
“She took all of that worry that was out there away, and she made us all whole again,” said Kenny Hoffa, Monica’s father.
“She’s a hero to all of us and our family. She’s part of our family now.”
A number of groups had offered rewards for anyone who provided tips that led to the suspect’s arrest.
The $110,000 reward comes from several of these organizations, including $50,000 from the FBI, $20,000 from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and $10,000 from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Crime Stoppers of Tampa Bay initially said Walker was not eligible to receive its $5,000 reward money because she did not actually call the tip line, although the group later put out a statement saying the money would be paid out, according to WFTS.
However, local businessman Richard Gonzmart personally delivered a $9,000 check to her Thursday, making good on his promise to contribute to the reward.
According to a new report from The Hill, early drafts of former FBI Director James Comey’s statement on Hillary Clinton’s email case accused the former Secretary of State of “gross negligence” in her handling of classified information as opposed to the “extremely careless” phrase that made its way into the final statement.
As The Hill further points out, the change in language is significant since federal law states that “gross negligence” in handling the nation’s intelligence can be punished criminally with prison time or fines whereas “extreme carelessness” has no such legal definition and/or ramifications.
An early draft of former FBI Director James Comey’s statement closing out the Hillary Clinton email case accused the former Secretary of State of having been ‘grossly negligent” in handling classified information, new memos to Congress show.
The tough language was changed to the much softer accusation that Clinton had been “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information when Comey announced in July 2016 there would be no charges against her.
The draft, written weeks before the announcement of no charges, was described by multiple sources who saw the document both before and after it was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee this past weekend.
“There is evidence to support a conclusion that Secretary Clinton, and others, used the email server in a manner that was grossly negligent with respect to the handling of classified information,” reads the statement, one of Comey’s earliest drafts.
Those sources said the draft statement was subsequently changed in red-line edits to conclude that the handling of 110 emails containing classified information that were transmitted by Clinton and her aides over her insecure personal email server was “extremely careless.”
Of course, Comey’s final statement, while critical of Hillary’s email usage, alleged that no prosecutor would pursue charges against actions which he described only as “extremely careless.”
“Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of the classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”
“There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position or in the position of those with whom she was corresponding about the matters should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.”
Meanwhile, Section 793 of federal law states that “gross negligence” with respect to the handling of national defense documents is punishable by a fine and up to 10 years in prison…so you can see why that might present a problem for Hillary.
“Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer— shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”
Unfortunately, The Hill’s sources couldn’t confirm the most important detail behind this bombshell new revelation, namely who made the call to the change the language…
The sources, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the memos show that at least three top FBI officials were involved in helping Comey fashion and edit the statement, including Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, General Counsel James Baker and Chief of Staff Jim Rybicki.
The documents turned over to Congress do not indicate who recommended the key wording changes, the sources said. The Senate Judiciary Committee is likely to demand the FBI identify who made the changes and why, the sources said.
…that said, we’re going to go out on a limb and question whether it just might have had something to do with that infamous meeting between Bill Clinton and then Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Comey’s boss, that happened just 6 days before Comey made his statement?
