WSJ
John Fund
January 3, 2018

We may be about to learn if the mainstream media can walk and cover two important but related stories at the same time.

For over a year the media have breathlessly followed every turn in the probes of Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election, along with any possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

But now a new story is about to bust open, involving Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Nunes sent a letter Thursday to the Justice Department demanding compliance by Wednesday with the subpoenas his committee issued for information on how the department and its FBI subsidiary have handled the Russia probe.

If the Justice Department stonewalls, the House could launch contempt proceedings or even vote to declassify and release some of the documents.

Nunes didn’t mince words in his letter. Noting the four months of stonewalling he’s gotten, he concluded that “at this point it seems the DOJ (Justice Department) and FBI need to be investigating themselves.”

Nunes documented a series of evasive maneuvers by the Justice Department. As a result of these maneuvers, documents and witnesses subpoenaed by his committee last August have still not been produced. Most relate to the dossier of unverified alleged connections – some financial and some salacious – between Donald Trump and Russia, compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.

The dossier was paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign. But it attracted the attention of the FBI, which dispatched three agents to interview Steele in Rome. The FBI even planned a few weeks before the 2016 election to pay Steele to continue his work.

Nunes wants to know if the FBI went further and caused the Steele dossier to be used as a justification for warrants to engage in the surveillance of Trump campaign figures before the election. The congressman’s letter raises the intriguing question: are there two forms of possible collusion from the 2016 campaign that need to investigated?

One topic of investigation could be possible contacts between Team Trump and Russia. The other topic could be possible collusion between intelligence officials and purveyors of partisan political dirt to launch surveillance against U.S. citizens and taint Trump before voters went to the polls.

Is the media capable of covering both stories? While Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe grinds on, shouldn’t we also know if Nunes is right that “DOJ/FBI’s intransigence ... is part of a broader pattern of behavior?”

In other words, is there a cover-up going on?

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who bitterly opposed Trump in the 2016 presidential primaries and has often been harshly critical of him as president, went so far to tell Fox News on Friday that a special counsel should be appointed to look into the handling of the Steele dossier by the Justice Department and FBI.

“I've spent some time in the last couple of days, after a lot of fighting with the Department of Justice, to get the background on the dossier, and here's what I can tell your viewers,” Graham said. “I'm very disturbed about what the Department of Justice did with this dossier, and we need a special counsel to look into that, because that's not in Mueller's charter.”

Graham continued: “And what I saw, and what I've gathered in the last couple of days, bothers me a lot, and I'd like somebody outside DOJ to look into how this dossier was handled and what they did with it….. After having looked at the history of the dossier, and how it was used by the Department of Justice, I'm really very concerned, and this cannot be the new normal.”

Graham’s key point is that he has new information explaining why the Justice Department has a motive to withhold witnesses and documents from Nunes. In other words, a cover-up may be going on.

The Justice Department has offered up various excuses for not producing the documents. At first, department officials claimed the documents didn’t exist. But Nunes writes: “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.”

The Justice Department and FBI officials involved included Bruce Ohr. He has been demoted from his former position of associate deputy attorney general because he had unauthorized contacts with Fusion GPS, the Democratic National Committee-paid firm responsible for the Steele dossier.

Ohr’s wife worked at Fusion GPS at the time. Other people reassigned include: James Baker, the FBI’s general counsel during 2016; and Peter Strzok, the bureau’s No. 2 counterintelligence official.

Strzok was largely responsible for kick-starting the FBI’s original probe into the Trump campaign. He was later assigned to Mueller’s special counsel staff. However, he was forced out after it was revealed that he exchanged 375 virulently anti-Trump text messages with fellow FBI agent Lisa Page, who was also on Mueller’s team.

Strzok also apparently attended meetings in the office of Deputy Director Andrew McCabe discussing how to stop Trump. And McCabe’s wife received $700,000 from close Hillary Clinton allies when running for the state legislature in Virginia in 2015. Last month it was reported that McCabe will soon be retiring.

Nunes wants to interview all of these players, along with FBI Attorney Sally Moyer and FBI Assistant Director for Congressional Affairs Greg Brower.

The heat being applied to the Justice Department and the FBI over possible misuses of the Steele dossier may have prompted some government officials to launch a diversion. A New York Times story last week reported that the FBI’s probe of Team Trump during the 2016 campaign, didn’t originate with the Steele dossier. Instead, the story says the probe was sparked by loose talk in a London bar from lower-level Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who has since pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

The Times reports its sources are “current and former officials” inside the government. But the newspaper never seems to pin them down on why those officials didn’t interview Papadopoulos until late January of 2017 – nine months after he came to their attention – or if they even bothered to make him one of their surveillance targets before that.

All of these loose ends and information stonewalling have started to interest a few media commentators.

Paul Callan, a former prosecutor who is a CNN legal analyst, wrote last week: “While I rarely agree with much of what the President does or says regarding legal issues, this time he's got it right. The FBI's reputation has been severely damaged not by the President's criticism but by a systematic failure of the bureau's leadership … the bureau's leadership ranks require a prompt and thorough house cleaning by the new director, Christopher Wray. The bureau's leadership has forfeited the reputation of a cherished American institution.”

President Trump has certainly behaved like the proverbial bull in a china shop by denouncing the Russia probe as a “witch hunt” and lashing out at former FBI Director James Comey. But obviously, the president’s tactics haven’t worked.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the Mueller probe because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself, has defended Mueller and apparently given him a free hand.

President Trump seems to be following the advice of his lawyers not to unilaterally declassify any Justice Department records. As the Wall Street Journal noted this week: “The Justice Department ultimately reports to Mr. Trump. Yet he can’t even get his nominees at the FBI and Justice to tell Congress what they used as evidence to get a FISA warrant against Trump campaign officials in 2016. Who is the unaccountable authority here?”

Former CBS News journalist Sharyl Attkisson has written a trenchant commentary about on how U.S. intelligence agencies have abused the privacy of Americans. She lists 10 examples of such abuses and concludes that intelligence and Justice Department officials sometimes “operate not just in direct defiance of their superiors, but of the Congress, the courts and the very laws of the land as well.”

You’d think that media obsessed with Russia’s involvement in the 2016 campaign would also be interested in that story. It would be especially timely, given that the Stephen Spielberg movie “The Post” is now in theaters retelling how major newspapers bravely overcame the stonewalling of the Nixon administration in trying to keep the Pentagon Papers from being published and revealing how the U.S. blundered into Vietnam.

But when it comes to the stonewalling of the Trump Justice Department or Obama-era intelligence officials, there is only crickets. Chairman Nunes’ letter charging the Justice Department with misbehavior received scant news coverage.

It’s time the media raised some questions of everyone concerned. If they choose not to, they may be remembered in history as being complicit in a cover-up, rather than emulating the brave Watergate-era journalists who stripped away the cover-ups of that time.

Link

quote:

Will the media ask questions about an FBI cover-up or become complicit in it?

If there was ever an easier question to answer, I don't know what it would be! Of course they will be complicit and do everything in their power to ignore, spin or justify any person or entity as long as they are anti-Trump.

Will Be? They are complicit, aiding and abetting.

They are complicit, have always been complicit. I think the confusion comes from calling them "the media." If you identified them properly, you could never ask the question. They are not "media" but swamp propagandists.

So: "Will the swamp propagandists...." --See, you can't even finish the sentence.

I, for one, am not holding my breath until any swamp creature does any damned thing to put an end to all this anti-Trump bullshit!

They want it to continue, and if possible, for it to increase to the point that Trump is either impeached, or left so cut off and crippled that he can get nothing done.

They are not the least concerned about the damage they are doing to the country! They are running flat out with the idea they can bring him (Trump) down.

Look how long this horse shit with mueller has gone on, no reason for it to start with, yet that asshole continues to "leak" tidbits, and dig deeper and deeper into stuff that has no part of his witch hunt.

And Trump cannot put a stop to it, for political reasons. If he does, the claim will be screamed from the mountain tops about his trying to cover up his illegal actions, yada yada yada.

That whole DOJ and FBI need to be sanitized. In every one of them fired. Then those street agents who want to really do their jobs can be vetted and returned to work.

Which begs the question, just how much vetting has been done for those at FBI HQ, that so many of those assholes involved with all the shenanigans actually got into those spots? Obviously, not much.

Sessions has recused himself from the Russian interference matter, but that's no reason to turn a blind eye to FBI and DOJ malfeasance. Yet it appears that he has.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
Sessions has recused himself from the Russian interference matter, but that's no reason to turn a blind eye to FBI and DOJ malfeasance. Yet it appears that he has.

If it isn't on TV, it didn’t happen!

I think some of you who think "nobody is doing anything" are going to be in for a surprise in the near future.

Just because they aren't out there running their mouths about what they're doing, doesn't mean they aren't doing it.

Why is it wrong for Trump to collude with Russia (if this indeed happened), but it's not considered collusion if the DNC and Hildabeast pay a British spy (ex-spy, but as if his contacts aren't still active)? I mean, they are both foreign governments...

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
I think some of you who think "nobody is doing anything" are going to be in for a surprise in the near future.

Just because they aren't out there running their mouths about what they're doing, doesn't mean they aren't doing it.

If the DOJ IG does not take any scalps, I will join the disillusioned and pissed-off deplorable army. But his report has not yet been released. Look for a major document dump 1/15-ish, followed by a report. At that point, I hope Sessions and Wray kick asses, take names, and release a blitzkrieg of indictments.


Here’s the critical OIG statement:

“The January 2017 statement issued by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG) announcing its review of allegations regarding various actions of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in advance of the 2016 election stated that the OIG review would, among other things, consider whether certain underlying investigative decisions were based on improper considerations and that we also would include issues that might arise during the course of the review.

The OIG has been reviewing allegations involving communications between certain individuals, and will report its findings regarding those allegations promptly upon completion of the review of them.”

~ Justice Department Office of the Inspector General

What the OIG statement is saying is that for 11 months the Dept of Justice OIG office has been investigating the politicization within the DOJ and FBI and deciding if the actions, or lack of action, was driven by the political ideology of the participants therein.

And who staffs the IG? Like specifically who hired them, placed them into their current positions? I understand they are autonomous and have broad leeway to persue things, but that dosen't matter if they are just a bunch of Obama-bots. Time and time again Obama appointees have proven to put political idiology over commitment to the nation and the rule of law.

Until this is know thinking the IG will do anything is like thinking the FBI would have fairly investigated Clinton. I fell for that BS once, not again. On 5 July 2016 Comey showed me that I would never believe another "investigation" conducted by a so-called "independent" government agency again.

IG clerked for a Reagan appointee, and was a partner at Cadwalader - which is not particularly biased politically, and a classic white shoe firm with a 200-year history. Let's all hope he is a stand up guy and a patriot.



Meet the Inspector General

Michael E. Horowitz was sworn in as the Inspector General of the Department of Justice (DOJ) on April 16, 2012, following his confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Mr. Horowitz was previously confirmed by the Senate in 2003 to serve a six-year term as a Commissioner on the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

As Inspector General, Mr. Horowitz oversees a nationwide workforce of more than 450 special agents, auditors, inspectors, attorneys, and support staff whose mission is to detect and deter waste, fraud, abuse, and misconduct in DOJ programs and personnel, and to promote economy and efficiency in Department operations. Since 2015, he has simultaneously served as the Chair of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), an organization comprised of all 73 federal Inspectors General.

Mr. Horowitz worked from 2002 to 2012 as a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham, & Taft LLP, where he focused his practice on white collar defense, internal investigations, and regulatory compliance. He also was a board member of the Ethics Resource Center and the Society for Corporate Compliance and Ethics.

Prior to working in private practice, Mr. Horowitz worked in DOJ from 1991 to 2002. He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1991 to 1999, where he was the Chief of the Public Corruption Unit and a Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division. In 1995, he was awarded the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service for his work on a complex police corruption investigation. Thereafter, he worked in the DOJ Criminal Division in Washington from 1999 to 2002, first as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General and then as Chief of Staff. Mr. Horowitz began his legal career as a law clerk for Judge John G. Davies of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and as an associate at Debevoise & Plimpton.

Mr. Horowitz earned his Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School and his Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, from Brandeis University.

Well lets hope he has some semblance of integrity.

As many have mentioned, myself included, there is NO WAY there should NOT have be an investigation into this. The fact that classified documents were found on Clinton's staffers electronic devices should have IMMEDIATELY triggered an investigation.

"Spillage" is one thing, and judging by the sheer volume and classification level of these documents this is not spillage. Spillage is leaking of a "confidential" or maybe even a "secret" document here and there (which would be investigated FULLY). The documents found on Hillary's server, and on her aids electronic devices? That was blatent disregard for security protocalls. You don't "accidentally" take that data outside of the secure system. In order to bypass the security protocols you need to DELIBERATELY intend to do it. As anyone who has dealt with the system knows, this level of "spillage" is impossible. It dosen't happen. Clinton and her aids DELIBERATELY bypassed security in order to move classed info onto non-classed devices. That is ILLEGAL. Comey talked about "intent"? Well let me tell you, the only way to move that amount of classed material, at that level of classification, involves a HUGE amount of intent.