https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...r-BBGeobm?li=BBnb7Kz

A former top counterintelligence expert at the FBI, now at the center of a political uproar for exchanging private messages that appeared to mock President Donald Trump, changed a key phrase in former FBI Director James Comey's description of how former secretary of state Hillary Clinton handled classified information, according to US officials familiar with the matter.

Electronic records show Peter Strzok, who led the investigation of Hillary Clinton's private email server as the No. 2 official in the counterintelligence division, changed Comey's earlier draft language describing Clinton's actions as "grossly negligent" to "extremely careless," the source said.

The drafting process was a team effort, CNN is told, with a handful of people reviewing the language as edits were made, according to another US official familiar with the matter.

The shift from "grossly negligent" to "extremely careless," which may appear pedestrian at first glance, reflected a decision by the FBI that could have had potentially significant legal implications, as the federal law governing the mishandling of classified material establishes criminal penalties for "gross negligence."

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, raised questions over why the change was made after receiving documents from the FBI last month, but the identity of who was behind the edit has not been reported until now.

CNN has also learned that Strzok was the FBI official who signed the document officially opening an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, according to sources familiar with the matter. As the No. 2 official in counterintelligence, Strzok was considered to be one of the bureau's top experts on Russia.

But the news of Strzok's direct role in the statement that ultimately cleared the former Democratic presidential candidate of criminal wrongdoing, now combined with the fact that he was dismissed from special counsel Robert Mueller's team after exchanging private messages with an FBI lawyer that could be seen as favoring Clinton politically, may give ammunition to those seeking ways to discredit Mueller's Russia investigation.

The FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment.

CNN reported in November that Comey and his FBI colleagues were "playing with the language" throughout the process of drafting Comey's statement on Clinton, believing that they needed to condemn the former secretary of state's handling of classified information, while also making clear they would not recommend criminal charges, according to a source familiar with the FBI decision.

Comey ultimately called Clinton's conduct "extremely careless," but said "no reasonable prosecutor" would pursue charges based on the evidence.

"Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," Comey said back in July 2016.

Grassley said that documents the FBI provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee in November included an earlier draft of Comey's exoneration statement from May 2016, which stated: "There is evidence to support a conclusion that Secretary Clinton, and others, used the private email server in a manner that was grossly negligent with respect to the handling of classified material."

Grassley then asked for the electronic "metadata," which would include "who created the original drafts, who made the edits to the draft statement, and when those edits were made."

Sources familiar with the requests tell CNN that Grassley has received the metadata, but he wants the FBI to provide further explanation about the changes.

Grassley's office did not return a request for comment.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jdmb03,

Swamp.

Dynamite the levees, the beaver dams, whatever, but drain the damned thing and now.

That two word change tanked the criminal case against Clinton.

I know for a fact that had I done what Clinton et al did, that change would have been to insert the word criminal before gross negligence.

God bless Judicial Watch for find this corruption in among a massive trove of pedestrian bullshit.

I don't believe his changing of the wording had any effect on Comey's not wanting to charge the stupid lying twatwaffle.

All that was going to come from him was harsh language. This was just less harsh...

More alarming is yet another indication of how far the FBI has slipped integrity wise.

FBI agent fired from Russia probe oversaw Flynn interviews, softened Comey language on Clinton email actions


http://www.foxnews.com/politic...n-email-actions.html

Who can fire whom at the FBI? The top 30 or 40+ people in the FBI should be fired. Just to begin cleaning house. And if they can’t be fired, defund the fbi.

They're after Trump for obstruction of justice???

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
They're after Trump for obstruction of justice???

Sure. That's the FBI's job (to obstruct justice).

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
They're after Trump for obstruction of justice???

I believe the FBI top tier should be charged for obstruction of justice.

Formerly I thought all the talk about "the deep state" was just paranoia.

The FBI needs to be dissolved. They only exist now to protect the establishment, in particular the leftist establishment. Give their budget to the state and local authorities, you kmow, people who actually care about enforcing the law. Not oppressing the people who oppose their masters. They ought to call 'ol Hugo Boss and get some spiffy new uniforms for themselves too.

I truly wish I could say I am surprised by all this shit. Truly!

Unfortunately, I cannot.

My only question is, "Just how long will it be before those crooks running the FBI go to jail."

Anyone care to hazard a guess? I know what I think, but am waiting to see other responses.

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:
The FBI needs to be dissolved. They only exist now to protect the establishment, in particular the leftist establishment. Give their budget to the state and local authorities, you kmow, people who actually care about enforcing the law. Not oppressing the people who oppose their masters. They ought to call 'ol Hugo Boss and get some spiffy new uniforms for themselves too.

I'd slightly disagree with you. It appears the leadership of the FBI seems to have closed ranks around the Clintons and their ilk. Mueller, Comey and the gang were all lawyers together. Mueller and Comey were especially tight. None of them were Agents, most of them worked in and around NY. I'd start by cleaning out the FBI SES before looking at the field agents.

clean pout the top three layers of management - ALL of them and start over. Field agents are likely just fine - its the management and supervisory cabal that's rotten to the core and needs to be purged from existence

as for the wording, change it back and start over

It seems to me that part of the problem is when the role of director started getting farmed out as a political job, rather than promoting up a career FBI “law enforcement officer”

It is like appointing a former University chancellor as the Commendant of the Marine Corps - yes, both are senior administrators, but the job has some very specific context..

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
They're after Trump for obstruction of justice???

Or whatever case they think they can build for impeachment. The key is to keep Trump's name in the press in a negative way and let this drag on for as many years as possible, until the public is weary and Congress thinks they have the political capital with the people and enough votes to get the impeachment. This isn't about right and wrong. It's about the Left's insatiable desire to turn this country into another totalitarian hell hole.



.

He is also the agent who interviewed Huma Abedin & Cheryl Mills and gave them a pass for lying.

http://dailycaller.com/2017/12...rump-fbi-supervisor/

Clinton Aides Went Unpunished After Making False Statements To Anti-Trump FBI Supervisor

The FBI agent who was fired from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation team for sending anti-Donald Trump text messages conducted the interviews with two Hillary Clinton aides accused of giving false statements about what they knew of the former secretary of state’s private email server.

Neither of the Clinton associates, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, faced legal consequences for their misleading statements, which they made in interviews last year with former FBI section chief Peter Strzok.

But another Strzok interview subject was not so lucky.

Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, pleaded guilty last week to lying during an interview he gave on Jan. 24 to Strzok and another FBI agent. Circa journalist Sara Carter reported on Monday that Strzok took part in that interview with the retired lieutenant general.

At the time, Strzok was the FBI’s top investigator on the fledgling investigation into Russian interference in the presidential campaign. He was appointed to supervise that effort at the end of July 2016, just weeks after the conclusion of the Clinton email probe. CNN reported on Monday that as the FBI’s No. 2 counterintelligence official, Strzok signed the documents that officially opened the collusion inquiry.

The starkly different outcomes from Strzok’s interviews — a felony charge against Flynn and a free pass to Mills and Abedin — are sure to raise questions from Republicans about double-standards in the FBI’s two most prominent political investigations. FBI Director Christopher Wray will likely be pressed on the Strzok scandal on Thursday when he attends an oversight hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.

Strzok was also a prominent part of the Clinton investigation, so much so that he conducted all of the most significant interviews in the case.

Along with Justice Department attorney David Laufman, Strzok interviewed Clinton herself on July 2, 2016. The pair also interviewed Mills, Abedin and two other Clinton aides, Jake Sullivan and Heather Samuelson.

Summaries of the interviews, known as 302s, were released by the FBI last year.

A review of those documents conducted by The Daily Caller shows that Mills and Abedin told Strzok and Laufman that they were not aware of Clinton’s server until after she left the State Department.

“Mills did not learn Clinton was using a private server until after Clinton’s [Department of State] tenure,” reads notes from Mills’ April 9, 2016 interview. “Mills stated she was not even sure she knew what a server was at the time.”



Abedin also denied knowing about Clinton’s server until leaving the State Department in 2013.

“Abedin did not know that Clinton had a private server until about a year and a half ago when it became public knowledge,” the summary of Strzok’s interview with Abedin states.



But undercutting those denials are email exchanges in which both Mills and Abedin either directly discussed or were involved in discussing Clinton’s server.

“hrc email coming back — is server okay?” Mills asked in a Feb. 27, 2010 email to Abedin and Justin Cooper, a longtime aide to Bill Clinton who helped set up the Clinton server.

“Ur funny. We are on the same server,” Cooper replied.



Mills and Abedin were also involved in an Aug. 30, 2011 exchange in which State Department official Stephen Mull mentioned that Clinton’s “email server is down.”

And in a Jan. 9, 2011 email exchange, Cooper told Abedin that Clinton’s server had been malfunctioning because “someone was trying to hack us.”

“Had to shut down the server,” wrote Cooper, who told the FBI in his interviews that he discussed Clinton’s server with Abedin in 2009, when it was being set up.



Former FBI Director James Comey defended the Clinton aides’ inconsistent statements in a House Judiciary Committee hearing held on Sept. 28, 2016.

“Having done many investigations myself, there’s always conflicting recollections of facts, some of which are central [to the investigation], some of which are peripheral,” Comey told Jason Chaffetz, a former Utah congressman who served on the committee last year.

Chaffetz was not buying Comey’s dismissive response.

“I think she lied to everybody,” he said of Mills in an interview on Fox News the night of the Comey hearing.

“There’s direct evidence that she actually did know [about the server],” said Chaffetz, who added that Comey’s defense of Mills “makes no sense.”

Chaffetz suggested that Mills would have had an incentive to deny knowing about the server during Clinton’s State Department tenure because it would allow her to cite attorney-client privilege to avoid discussing certain aspects of Clinton’s email setup. Mills began working as one of Clinton’s lawyers just after they left the State Department.

Strzok’s role in the Clinton and Russia investigations took on a new significance on Saturday after the bombshell revelation that the FBI veteran exchanged politically-charged text messages last year.

Strzok was kicked off of Mueller’s team over the summer after the Justice Department’s inspector general discovered that he sent the messages to Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer and his mistress. The watchdog has been investigating the FBI and DOJ’s handling of the Clinton email matter.

Page also worked on the Mueller team for a short time over the summer.

TheDC also discovered that Strzok’s wife, a Securities and Exchange Commission attorney named Melissa Hodgman, has a strong pro-Clinton bias. Her Facebook account shows she’s a member of groups called “We Voted for Hillary” and “Thank You Obama.”

It was reported back in August that Strzok had been removed from the Mueller team to the FBI’s human resources department. Mueller’s office had declined for months to comment on the mysterious personnel move.

It was also revealed on Monday that Strzok was the FBI agent responsible for softening language that Comey used in his July 5, 2016 statement closing the Clinton investigation. Strzok edited a rough draft of Comey’s speech, changing out the phrase “grossly negligent” — a term which has legal weight — with the softer phrase, “extremely careless.”

The FBI and Special Counsel’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.

Everything they accuse Trump of doing they are actually doing....AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT! It is infuriating.

We know that the Uniparty went bat shit crazy when Trump was elected, and are still foaming at the mouth, but week by week we are getting a clearer picture why. The Swamp is wider, deeper, more putrid than any of us imagined even a year ago. A LOT of slimy creatures stand to go to prison for a long time when it is drained. They are fighting for their corrupt lives.

More Anti-Trump Messages Reportedly Sent By Members Of Mueller's Team: "A Lot More Is Going To Come Out"

Days after it emerged that former Special Counsel investigator Peter Strzok was fired from Robert Mueller's Trump-Russia probe in August for sending anti-Trump text messages to his mistress while the two were working together on the Clinton email investigation, Sara Carter of Circa told a Fox News panel that there are more anti-Trump messages sent by Mueller's team floating around.

Carter previously emerged as one of the handful of people to review documents obtained by an undercover FBI informant embedded in the Russian uranium industry. Appearing on Hannity's show Monday night, Carter was asked about rumors of more anti-Trump sentiment expressed by Mueller's team:

Sean Hannity: I’m hearing rumors all over the place Sara Carter that there are other anti-Trump text-emails out there. And we know about them.

Sara Carter: I think you’re hearing correctly Sean and I think a lot more is going to come out. In fact, I know a lot more is going to come out based on the sources I’ve spoken to.

Tangentially, it has been widely reported that Mueller's special counsel is stacked with investigators who have donated to Obama, Clinton or other Democrat causes. As Jessica McBride reported in Heavy:

Andrew Weissmann: Weissmann is a Barack Obama and Democratic campaign donor, according to federal records. “Weissmann, who led the Enron investigation, previously gave $2,300 to Obama’s first presidential campaign in 2008 and $2,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 2006

Jeannie Rhee: donated $5,400 to Hillary Clinton in 2015 and 2016, according to FEC records. The records show she gave $2,500 each to Obama for America and Obama Victory Fund 2012 in 2011
Andrew Goldstein: According to Fox News, “Goldstein contributed a combined $3,300 to Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012”

Greg Andres: FEC records show that Andres has donated at least $2,700 to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)

James Quarles: Donated thousands of dollars to the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. He has also donated money recently to other Democrats, including Friends of Chuck Schumer and two other Democrats. He has a lengthy donation history dating back years. He did donate to two Republicans over the years, however.

Elizabeth Prelogar: A former law clerk to Justics Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagen, gave $250 to Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to FEC records. She also gave $500 total to Obama for America and the Obama Victory Fund 2012.

Brandon Van Grack: gave small amounts to ActBlue, an effort to raise money for Democrats, and to a Democratic candidate for Congress in 2012. In 2008, he gave about $286 to Barack Obama.
Rush Atkinson: donated $200 to Clinton’s campaign in 2016.

Kyle Freeny: In 2012, Freeny gave $300 to Obama. In 2008, Freeny also gave $250 to Obama, FEC records show.

To review: veteran FBI agent Peter Strzok, working under James Comey, headed up both the Clinton email investigation and the Trump-Russia probe before Mueller's special counsel was created to take the reigns. Strzok - who was responsible for changing the FBI's opinion of Clinton's mishandling of classified info from "grossly negligent" to "extremely careless," - had an extramarital affair with FBI lawyer Lisa Page while the two were working on the Clinton "matter." During the investigation, Strzok sent Page anti-Trump / pro-Clinton text messages, which resulted in the dismissal of both Strzok and Page from Mueller's Trump-Russia probe. Strzok now works in the FBI's HR department.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...ot-more-going-come-o

Thank God Trump got elected and not Hillary. Trump may clean it up, Hillary would not.