If 1 Of These Bastards Is Your Leader You Will Be Corrupt.
A bombshell inspector general report released Thursday revealed that several FBI employees improperly received gifts from reporters, in connection with possible leaks of sensitive information.
Although public details of these exchanges are scant, they could constitute prosecutable violations of federal gift-giving rules.
The gifts in question included “tickets to sporting events, golfing outings, drinks and meals, and admittance to nonpublic social events.”
A Monkey Could See This Corruption.
“We will separately report on those investigations as they are concluded, consistent with the Inspector General Act, other applicable federal statutes, and OIG policy,” the report reads.
Gifting rules for executive branch officials are strict and exacting. The U.S. Office of Government Ethics provides that “executive branch employees may not solicit or accept gifts that are given because of their official positions or that come from certain interested sources (‘prohibited sources’).”
The rules define a prohibited source as a person who:
Is seeking official action by, is doing business or seeking to do business with, or is regulated by the employee’s agency; or
Has interests that may be substantially affected by performance or nonperformance of the employee’s official duties.
These rules apply to government officials, and it is not clear if any reporters involved in these dealings could face any sort of punishment.
It’s also not clear a reporter should be considered a “prohibited source” within the meaning of the provided definitions.
Violations of gift-giving rules are sometimes prosecuted as violations of the honest services fraud (HSF) statute. High profile office-holders indicted for gift violations under this law include Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey and former GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia. Jack Abramoff, the notorious Washington lobbyist, was convicted of honest services fraud.
The HSF statute is a controversial tool, as its vague provisions permit an enterprising prosecutor to make a criminal case out of good faith mistakes or generally harmless conduct. The U.S. Supreme Court dramatically narrowed the reach of the law in a 2010 case called Skilling v. U.S., confining its use to cases involving bribes or kickbacks.
Violations of federal anti-corruption laws occur when a public employee takes “official action” in exchange for gifts. The high court has confined the meaning of “official action” to include only formal exercises of power in official proceedings. It’s not clear that leaking to a reporter falls within this definition, although other federal laws may criminalize this conduct.
Criminal cases notwithstanding, unauthorized media contacts involving the exchange of gifts could serve as a basis for other administrative penalties, like reassignment, suspension or termination.
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.
Can He Give Up Obama? If Not Tell Him To Go Milk A Brahman Bull.
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is set to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee soon, but he apparently has made a request for immunity in exchange.
According to CNN, McCabe is requesting “the Senate Judiciary Committee provide him with immunity from prosecution” in exchange for testimony on the handling of the Clinton email probe:
“Under the terms of such a grant of use immunity, no testimony or other information provided by Mr. McCabe could be used against him in a criminal case,” wrote Michael Bromwich, a lawyer for McCabe, to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, who has requested McCabe testify next week.
This comes as a DOJ inspector general report on the FBI and DOJ’s handling of Clinton probe is expected very soon. President Trumptweeted this morning, “What is taking so long with the Inspector General’s Report on Crooked Hillary and Slippery James Comey. Numerous delays. Hope Report is not being changed and made weaker! There are so many horrible things to tell, the public has the right to know. Transparency!” Bromwich said in the letter to Grassley he’s willing to give the committee emails that “demonstrate that Mr. McCabe advised former Director Comey, in October 2016, that Mr. McCabe was working with FBI colleagues to correct inaccuracies before certain media stories were published.”
Grassley has also, per CNN, invited both James Comey and Loretta Lynch to testify too.
Why Can’t Anyone Bring Up That Obama Did This, And Indict That Village Idiot?
Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” House Freedom Caucus chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) said he wanted to know who directed a confidential human source to collect information on the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump.
Meadows said, “What we do know is that there was indeed a confidential human source, which is what the FBI would call it that, was actually giving intel. Not only to the FBI, but you have to ask the question when did it start? We do know that actually, those confidential human sources were engaging prior to the official FBI investigation.”
He continued, “So the question begs: at whose direction, you know, what were they collecting and who were they reporting to? Because that was happening before the FBI actually opened an investigation. And so as we know that—and we know that from nonclassified sources. There is no question that there was a spy that was collecting information, and the definition of that: somebody who does something in secret without the knowledge of another person.”
Last week, reports indicated Stefan Halper, a Cambridge professor and longtime aide to some of Washington’s most powerful figures, was outed as an FBI informant planted inside Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The New York Post writes:
Halper made his first overture when he met with Page at a British symposium. The two remained in regular contact for more than a year, meeting at Halper’s Virginia farm and in Washington, DC, as well as exchanging emails.
The professor met with Trump campaign co-chair Sam Clovis in late August, offering his services as a foreign-policy adviser, The Washington Post reported Friday, without naming the academic.
…
Days later, Halper contacted Papadopoulos by e-mail. The professor offered the young and inexperienced campaign aide $3,000 and an all-expenses-paid trip to London, ostensibly to write a paper about energy in the eastern Mediterranean region.
Here are a few fast facts about Halper’s history in politics.
Got His Start in Nixon/Ford Years
The Stanford and Oxford-educated Halper started his career in government in 1971 as a member of President Richard Nixon’s Domestic Policy Council. The foreign policy expert served as the Office of Management and Budget’s Assistant Director of Management and Evaluation Division between 1973-1974. Halper then served as an assistant to all three of President Gerald Ford’s Chief of Staffs — Alexander Haig, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney — until 1977.
Accused of Leading a Spy Ring Inside Jimmy Carter’s Presidential Campaign
The Reagan-Bush presidential campaign hired Halper to serve as Director of Policy Coordination in 1980 and would later be embroiled in the Debategate affair, a scandal in which CIA operatives were accused of leaking the Carter campaign’s foreign policy positions to the Republican ticket.
Four decades ago, Halper was responsible for a long-forgotten spying scandal involving the 1980 election, in which the Reagan campaign – using CIA officials managed by Halper, reportedly under the direction of former CIA Director and then-Vice-Presidential candidate George H.W. Bush – got caught running a spying operation from inside the Carter administration. The plot involved CIA operatives passing classified information about Carter’s foreign policy to Reagan campaign officials in order to ensure the Reagan campaign knew of any foreign policy decisions that Carter was considering.
Halper also worked as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs during President Ronald Reagan’s first term.
Had a Stint as a Bank Executive
In 1984, Halper was chairman of three financial institutions — National Bank of Northern Virginia, Palmer National Bank, and George Washington National Bank. White House official Oliver North wired loaned funds from the Palmer National Bank to a Swiss bank account, which were later used to aid the contras.
Believed Hillary Clinton Would Be a Better Steward for U.S.-UK Relations
In March 2016, Halper told Russia’s Sputnik News that he believed then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton would prove to be a steadier hand in preserving the “special relationship” enjoyed by the United States and Britain.
“I believe Clinton would be best for US-UK relations and for relations with the European Union. Clinton is well-known, deeply experienced and predictable. US-UK relations will remain steady regardless of the winner although Clinton will be less disruptive over time,” Halper said.
Why Did Bob Mueller Not Investigate Any Of These SOB’s.
Leakers to the New York Times confirmed in a story published on Wednesday that the FBI had run a spy operation on the Trump campaign that involved government informants, secret subpoenas, and possible wiretaps.
The story comes ahead of the release of the pending Department of Justice inspector general report on the FBI’s actions during the 2016 election, and likely is an attempt by the leakers to paint the FBI’s efforts in the most flattering light possible.
But the story revealed that the FBI – which is supposed to be an apolitical agency – was spying on the Trump campaign through phone records and with “at least one” human asset.
“The F.B.I. obtained phone records and other documents using national security letters — a secret type of subpoena — officials said. And at least one government informant met several times with Mr. Page and Mr. Papadopoulos,” the Times reported, citing “current and former officials.”
The revelation of “at least one government informant” appears to confirm a Washington Post story last week in which leakers revealed that the FBI had a “top secret intelligence source” — a U.S. citizen who likely lived overseas — who had spied on members of the Trump campaign for the FBI.
The Post‘s report came out as House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) was fighting the Justice Department for access to information on the source.
According to the Wall Street Journal‘s Kimberley Strassel, the source meant “the FBI secretly had a person on the payroll who used his or her non-FBI credentials to interact in some capacity with the Trump campaign.”
“This would amount to spying, and it is hugely disconcerting,” she wrote in a piece last Thursday.
The Times‘ story also seems to conflict with what the FBI has previously maintained — that the investigation into the Trump campaign began with information that Papadopoulos had told an Australian diplomat he knew that Russians had stolen emails that would be embarrassing for Clinton.
Leakers told the Times that “within hours” of opening the investigation into the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016, the FBI dispatched two agents to London to interview the Australian diplomat who had talked to Papadopoulos, meaning that the investigation had officially opened even before they interviewed him.
In fact, it was not until two days after the investigation began that the agents summarized their interview — which apparently “broke with diplomatic protocol” — and sent the summary back to Washington.
The Times‘ story glosses over this discrepancy by saying the agents’ report “helped provide the foundation” for the case – instead of sparked the case – as has been claimed.
Those facts appear to confirm that the FBI had opened the investigation on the Trump campaign based on other information — perhaps the “top secret intelligence source.”
Strassel also questioned in her piece when the investigation really began, and why. She wrote:
“…when precisely was this human source operating? Because if it was prior to that infamous Papadopoulos tip, then the FBI isn’t being straight. It would mean the bureau was spying on the Trump campaign prior to that moment. And that in turn would mean that the FBI had been spurred to act on the basis of something other than a junior campaign aide’s loose lips.”
The Times’ story is also vague as to when exactly FBI agents began looking into the Trump campaign, saying that it was “days” after their investigation on Hillary Clinton’s email server ended. Comey had announced he would not seek charges against Clinton on July 5, 2016, and the FBI officially launched their investigation on July 31, 2016.
According to the Times‘ story, the investigation seems to have been sparked by suspicions over some campaign members’ pre-existing connections with Russia before they joined the campaign.
Flynn, a retired three-star general, was once paid $45,000 by Russian outlet Russia Today for a 2015 speaking engagement; Paul Manafort — a veteran Republican strategist — had lobbied for pro-Russian interests in Ukraine long before he joined the Trump campaign; Carter Page had previously worked in Moscow and Russian spies had tried to recruit him. In Papadopoulos’s case, he “seemed to know” Russia had “political dirt” on Clinton.
The FBI also found Trump’s behavior suspicious, although he was not under investigation. FBI officials were also alarmed by reports that wrongly suggested that Trump’s campaign had tried to change the GOP’s stance on Ukraine in a way favorable to Russia.
The Times’ story also confirms the FBI used the salacious Steele dossier in addition to “F.B.I. information” to obtain a wiretap on Page. Democrats have tried to downplay the FBI’s reliance on the document.
The story reveals the FBI — instead of alerting the Trump campaign that it might be a target of Russian influence operations — went to lengths to hide the investigation.
Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates claimed in an interview with the Times that they did not want word of the investigation to leak and to impact the election.
“You do not take actions that will unnecessarily impact an election,” she said. (Instead, they secretly spied on the Trump campaign as mentioned above, via phone records, secret subpoenas, and at least one informant.)
The story downplays the actions of FBI agent Peter Strzok, who played a key role in the Clinton email and Trump campaign investigations.
The story claims that the FBI did not reveal eagerness to investigate Trump, citing one of Strzok’s text messages to FBI lawyer Lisa Page, with whom he was having an extramarital affair.
The Times quoted Strzok as texting Page with, “I cannot believe we are seriously looking at these allegations and the pervasive connections.” In reality, he had texted Page “OMG I CANNOT BELIEVE WE ARE SERIOUSLY LOOKING AT THESE ALLEGATIONS AND THE PERVASIVE CONNECTIONS.”
The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway, who has reported on the FBI’s investigation in depth, called the Times’ report “an attempted whitewash” of FBI behavior.
The story reveals that the code name for the investigation on the Trump campaign was “Crossfire Hurricane,” based on a Rolling Stones song.
Nowhere in the story, however, is there evidence of any collusion during the campaign. The story states that Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was about to be cleared in November 2016, until he took actions after the election that the FBI wanted to examine.
The story also states: “The question they confronted still persists: Was anyone in the Trump campaign tied to Russian efforts to undermine the election?”
“A year and a half later, no public evidence has surfaced connecting Mr. Trump’s advisers to the hacking or linking Mr. Trump himself to the Russian government’s disruptive efforts,” it states.
The story also shows former CIA Director John Brennan taking an active role in pushing the investigation along.
By mid-August, Brennan shared intelligence with Comey showing that the Russian government was behind an attack on the election. It states he also briefed top lawmakers that summer about Russian election interference and intelligence that Moscow supported the Trump campaign.
Other reports have said Brennan briefed then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who then urged then-FBI Director James Comey to investigate the Trump campaign in an August 27, 2016 letter that could be shared with media — even though there was already an open FBI investigation.
A separate report on Wednesday published by the American Spectator’s George Neumayr said that leaked news stories in the British press showed that Brennan’s spying on Trump began around April 2016.
“As it became urgently clear to Brennan that Trump was going to face off against Hillary, Brennan turned to ‘intelligence partners’ in Europe for dirt on Trump. But they didn’t have any, save some pretty skimpy material on ‘contacts’ between Trump campaign officials and Russians,” he writes. He continues:
From April 2016 to July 2016, according to leaked stories in the British press, he assembled a multi-agency taskforce that served as the beginnings of a counterintelligence probe into the Trump campaign. During these months, he was ‘personally briefing’ Obama on ‘Russian interference’ — Brennan’s euphemism for spying on the Trump campaign — and was practically camped out at the White House. So in all likelihood Obama knew about and had given his blessing to Brennan’s dirt-digging.
The Times‘ story seems to corroborate that taskforce. According to the Times, “intelligence agencies began collaborating to investigate” the Russian government attack on the election, which involved the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane team.
“The Crossfire Hurricane team was part of that group but largely operated independently,” three officials told the Times.
