The full Horowitz report is here at an official DOJ site (https://www.justice.gov/file/1071991/download)
The first 10-12 pages are an Executive Summary.
FBI
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The big point everybody is missing about the FBI/CIA spy from Cambridge University
It is a sad sign of decline at Cambridge University that their latest spy is working for United States.What is this poor world coming to?
Cambridge spies are supposed to work for the Russians.
There is tradition to uphold here, folks.
Can Putin and his minions no longer recruit idealistic socialists who hate their country?
Must they give up on entirely British universities and rely on Berkeley, Oberlin, and Evergreen State?
There is a small glimmer of continuity. At least the recruiting agencies were up to no good.
They were doing their best to infiltrate an American political campaign.
The story is here, complete with the spy’s name and picture. We know those details thanks entirely to CYA leaks from the DOJ or FBI, trying desperately to get ahead of Congressional investigations and the Horowitz report (the DOJ Inspector General).
Those details were supposed to be top secret. That the officials charged with keeping the secrets released them to protect themselves is a scandal in its own right.
On a more serious note: the house that Comey, Clapper, Brennan, and their aides built now looks increasingly like a game of jenga. The wooden blocks are being removed, though the process is moving very, very slowly because of DOJ and FBI self-protection.Did these guys previously work on transparency and document security for Joe Paterno’s athletic department?
But with each new block removed, the whole structure looks more and more likely to collapse.
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Federal Bureau of . . . Incompetence? Impropriety?
The FBI, which took custody of Hillary’s server, seems to have “lost the chain of custody.”
Normally, I assume incompetence, and that’s probably true here. Probably, but not certainly.
If you want to see how much the public’s trust in the FBI has declined, just ask yourself,
- Do you absolutely trust their explanation?
- Do you trust it, given that you can’t trust them with the investigation of that server, its owner, or its chain of custody?”
Somebody needs to explain.
Under oath.
That would include the head of the agency at the time.
That would be Robert Mueller.
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FBI’s Lisa Page (of the Page-Strzok texts) to leave the Bureau. Wants to “spend more time away from the family”
The New York Times reports (link here):
When people in the counter-intelligence branch get exposed in a very public extra-marital affair, they may not be such ace counter-intel people.
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True: FBI Redacts Names of Superman and Clark Kent to Protect Their Privacy
Just when you thought the FBI couldn’t embarrass itself any more, they come up with this topper:
The FBI redacted Clark Kent’s name from the script of a play written by the Church of Scientology in order to protect his privacy.
The FBI included the script in a batch of records on the [Church of Scientology] they released to journalist Emma Best of MuckRock in response to her 2017 FOIA lawsuit but evidently redacted the name of character Clark Kent under the impression both The Daily Planet and Kent were real. –Daily Caller (link here)
Now that Clark can’t find a phone booth to change into his Superman outfit, the FBI has come to his rescue. Wait til they discover the truth about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. That could rock the Bureau to its foundations.Kudos to Joshua Gill, the Daily Caller, MuckRock, and Emma Best for uncovering this gem.
Some redactions are reasonable–and necessary–to protect national security, personal privacy, or ongoing criminal investigations.
Most redactions , however, are simply governmental stupidity (see above and below) or “cover your arse” to protect the country from seeing your previous stupidity.
SUGGESTION: My strong suggestion to the House Committees that cannot get unredacted documents is that, after they finally get the redactions removed (by threats of subpoenas and impeachment) to release the updated documents highlighting exactly what had been redacted previously and naming the highest official at DOJ responsible for the unnecessary redactions.
Here is the actual FBI redaction of play mentioning Superman and Clark Kent:
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Bret Baier’s interview with James Comey: Sharper, clearer, faster, better than the others by orders of magnitude
Baier’s evening newscast is, I think, the best on TV.
Even if you don’t like the discussion panel for the last 15 minutes (and those who are center-left may not), the hard-news portion is superb.
Indeed, I think it is easily the best straight-news show in the business. And I, for one, like the back-and-forth on the panel.
Tonight, Baier’s interview with Comey showed why he stands head-and-shoulders above the rest.
It was fast, crisp, and tough without being tendentious (except for one moment where Baier reflexively and accurately said Comey had made a factually incorrect statement).
It was also newsworthy.
Here it is, in case you missed it.
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House Intelligence Committee now looking at targeting of Trump Campaign by Obama intel agencies, also raisng perjury questions
Exclusive at Real Clear Investigations: CIA Ex-Director Brennan’s Perjury Peril (link here)
Here is the heart of Paul Sperry’s report:
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes next plans to investigate the role former CIA Director John Brennan and other Obama intelligence officials played in promoting the salacious and unverified Steele dossier on Donald Trump — including whether Brennan perjured himself in public testimony about it.In his May 2017 testimony before the intelligence panel, Brennan emphatically denied the dossier factored into the intelligence community’s publicly released conclusion last year that Russia meddled in the 2016 election “to help Trump’s chances of victory.”
Brennan also swore that he did not know who commissioned the anti-Trump research document, even though senior national security and counterintelligence officials at the Justice Department and FBI knew the previous year that the dossier was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Last week, Nunes (R-Calif.) released a declassified memo exposing surveillance “abuses” by the Obama DOJ and FBI in their investigation of Trump’s ties to Russia. It said the agencies relied heavily on the uncorroborated dossier to take out a warrant to secretly surveil a Trump adviser in the heat of the 2016 presidential election, even though they were aware the underlying “intelligence” supporting the wiretap order was political opposition research funded by Clinton allies — a material fact they concealed from FISA court judges in four separate applications. –Paul Sperry at Real Clear Investigations
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The Stench at Obama’s DOJ and FBI. My latest at Real Clear Politics.
My latest at Real Clear Politics (link here)
Here’s a synopsis:The Stench at Obama’s DOJ and FBI
January 24, 2018
The investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller is not the only major investigation in progress.
There are now three major Congressional probes of the Obama-era FBI, Department of Justice, and intelligence agencies. They are slowly peeling away layers of political bias, unequal application of the law, and, perhaps even felonies by senior officials who may have leaked classified documents, obstructed justice, and violated Fourth Amendment guarantees against unreasonable search and seizure.
These Congressional probes are not mere diversions, as Democrats charge. They have serious, legitimate intentions and raise troubling questions.
- Why did former FBI Director James Comey and his team pre-judge and soft-soap the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s unsecured private server and her classified emails?
- Why did they decide to clear her before completing key interviews with Mrs. Clinton and her aides?
- Why did DOJ grant immunity so freely to obtain evidence that could have been easily subpoenaed by a grand jury?
- Why did the government itself then destroy that evidence, so no one could do a real investigation later?
- For that matter, why didn’t they convene a grand jury in the first place, as Mueller did almost immediately?
- What involvement did the FBI counter-intelligence division have with the FusionGPS, Christopher Steele “Russian dossier,” financed by the Clinton campaign?
- Was the dossier used, in part, to obtain a warrant to spy on Trump associates and, if so, was the FISA court completely informed about the dossier’s financing, provenance, and lack of verification?
- And what the hell happened to months of text messages among key anti-Trump investigators at the FBI and DOJ?
VERY important questions. The public deserves answers.
That’s why these investigations are at least as important as Mueller’s, and for the same reason. They are both about honest elections and the rule of law, applied equally to insiders and outsiders, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.
It’s about whether our most powerful government agencies are worthy of our trust. If we have lost sight of those values, we’ve lost our Constitutional bearings.
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FBI Search Dog On the Prowl and Pointing Toward . . .
The Chicago Tribune‘s wonderful editorial cartoonist, Scott Stantis, has often penned negative drawings about Pres. Trump.
He has not been especially critical of the Trump investigations… until now.
His balanced stance makes his devastating take on the FBI’s unraveling mess all the more meaningful.
