Don’t Hold Your Breath For Deep State Bombshells In IG Report On FBI

The DOJ inspector general report on allegations of corruption in the investigations into members of the Trump campaign in 2016 is due out on December 9. The report by Inspector General Michael Horowitz has been eagerly anticipated by both sides in the debate over the origins of the Russia investigation, but the early signs indicate that proponents of the Deep State conspiracy theory may be disappointed.

Over the weekend, CNN reported the IG found evidence that an FBI employee altered a document connected with the surveillance warrant application for Carter Page, a former Trump campaign advisor. The CNN report did not detail what changes were made to the document and it is not known what role the document played in obtaining the warrant, but the alterations were reportedly significant enough to change the meaning of the document. The Washington Post cited US officials who said that the employee falsely claimed he had supporting evidence to back up the changes.

On the surface, the report seemed damning for the FBI, but, reading beyond the headline, the incident is much less sinister than it first appeared. The employee in question was a low-level attorney rather than an FBI agent or manager and, after the deception was discovered, the employee was forced out of the bureau. The incident became public as Horowitz turned over evidence of the alteration to federal prosecutor John Durham.

The Post reported that Horowitz found that the incident did not undermine the legal and factual basis of the federal investigation into Carter Page. The finding that the incident did not compromise the probable cause for the investigation undermines Republican claims that the counterintelligence investigations into members of the Trump campaign were begun in bad faith. Sources with knowledge of the report say that Horowitz found the FBI’s work to be sloppy but not indicative of a Deep State conspiracy against Trump.

Several Republicans have raised expectations for the IG report in recent weeks. President Trump, who said that he is “waiting for the report like everybody else,” told Fox News several weeks ago, “I predict you will see things that you don’t even believe, the level of corruption — whether it’s [James] Comey; whether it’s [Peter] Strzok and his lover [Lisa] Page; whether it’s so many other people — [Andrew] McCabe; whether it’s President Obama himself. Let’s see whether or not it’s President Obama. Let’s see whether or not they put that in.”

Likewise, Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) said, “It doesn’t take 500 pages to tell the inspector general that everything was done properly. The IG report is going to find that there were problems.”

The question is how big the problems were and whether there was intentional abuse. Some of the problems are discussed in an assessment by the IG released last week that found "numerous issues" with FBI handling of secret sources The Washington Times reported that that the issues including failing to vet sources in a timely manner and insufficiently clear guidance from FBI headquarters. The assessment made 16 recommendations which were reportedly being implemented by the FBI.

"Ineffective management and oversight of confidential sources can result in jeopardizing FBI operations and placing FBI agents, sources, subjects of investigation, and the public in harm's way," Horowitz said in a two-minute video accompanying release of the assessment.

In the wake of the assessment and revelation about the FBI lawyer, Carter Page is among those trying to tamp down expectations. In an interview with CNN’s Michael Smerconish over the weekend, Page said, “The keyword that you just said is sloppiness, right? And unfortunately, the way that this inspector general report has been assembled and completed over the last couple of years and particularly over the last few months, is completely sloppy. It’s only one side’s perspective.”

Indeed, the fact that the draft report was submitted to Attorney General Barr in September but the only hint of a prosecution is the unnamed former FBI lawyer is a strong indication that there was little unethical or criminal activity for Horowitz to find. The lack of criminal referrals to Durham or leaks trumpeting Obama-era FBI corruption is a strong hint that the conspiracy claims are duds.

While the report has not yet been released to the public, insiders say that the report paints an objective picture that is critical of the FBI but does not support the claim that there was a high-level conspiracy to undermine the Trump campaign. However, because the report does criticize the FBI, sources within the government say that it will give ammunition to both sides.

“You can see how the warring factions will seize on the various parts of this to advance their respective narratives,” a person familiar with the report told the Washington Post.

That will be particularly true for those who rely on cherry-picked passages cited by pundits without looking at the entire report.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump Doesn’t Have To Be ‘Unhappy’ That There Is No Clinton Investigation

President Trump on Thursday criticized the Justice Department for failing to investigate Hillary Clinton. Trump said that he was “very unhappy”  and “frustrated” with a situation that he called beyond his control.

Speaking on Larry O’Connor’s radio show, the president said, “The saddest thing is that because I'm the President of the United States I'm not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department, I'm not supposed to be involved with the FBI, I'm not supposed to be doing the kinds of things I would love to be doing and I'm very frustrated by it. I look at what's happening with the Justice Department, why aren't they going after Hillary Clinton with her emails and with the dossier and the kind of money...?"

"It’s very discouraging to me,” the president continued. “I'll be honest, I'm very unhappy with it that the Justice Department isn't going—now maybe they are but you know as president, you're not supposed to be involved in that process but hopefully they are doing something and maybe at some point we can all have it out."

President Trump seems confused here. The Justice Department is under his authority. Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, is his appointee and works for him. If President Trump really believes that Hillary Clinton is a criminal, he could easily order an investigation to determine whether that is true.

What the president cannot do is interfere with an ongoing investigation. This is why President Trump got into trouble for firing FBI Director James Comey. Comey alleged that Trump pressured him to stopping the investigation of Mike Flynn, which skates perilously close to obstruction of justice.

But stopping an investigation into Flynn is the opposite of starting an investigation into the Clintons. As a candidate, Trump seemed to understand that the president had the power to order an investigation when he promised on the campaign trail to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary. Chants of “lock her up” were encouraged by Trump at his rallies.

In fact, it was President-elect Trump, not the Department of Justice, who decided against an investigation of the Clintons. Two weeks after the election, Trump said, “I don’t want to hurt the Clintons, I really don’t. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways, and I am not looking to hurt them at all. The campaign was vicious.”

At a post-election rally in December 2016, Trump stopped the crowd from chanting “lock her up.”

“That plays great before the election,” Trump said. “Now we don't care, right?”

Now that Trump’s approval rating is in the cellar and the Russia investigation is heating up, Trump’s interest in Hillary is renewed. This may be due to the recent revelations about Democrat involvement in the Trump dossier, but it is more likely the president is using Hillary as a distraction and a way of shoring up support for his base. If the president really wanted an investigation of Hillary, there would be one.

While criminalizing political differences is a dangerous road to travel, in the case of the Clintons there seem to be ample grounds for an investigation. Did the Clinton Foundation break the law by selling influence and access to the Secretary of State? Did the Democrats illegally collude with the Russians on the Trump dossier? Did the Obama Administration use the dossier supplied by the Clintons to improperly spy on Americans? Did the Clintons violate laws when they exerted their influence on the Democratic National Committee during the primaries?

Trump’s calls to “lock her up” complicate any investigation of Hillary. As with his tweets calling for the death penalty in the recent New York terror attack, Trump’s words can be considered prejudicial to the  outcome of an investigation or trial. If the president thinks Hillary broke the law, he should have Jeff Sessions appoint an independent counsel and then stop tweeting and talking about it.

The case against the Clintons is much stronger now than it was a year ago when Trump was threatening to “lock her up.” As the allegations mount against, the need for an independent investigation grows. President Trump has the authority to make an investigation happen. And should.

Originally published on The Resurgent 

Mike Flynn Is the Key To the Trump-Comey Dispute

As the furor rages unabated after the testimony of James Comey, both sides are coming to the realization that it settled nothing. Comey said just enough to allow both sides to reinforce their preconceived notions and declare a victory. Comey’s testimony is not the end, but is more like pulling a thread that causes other threads to unravel. Even though Comey did not present irrefutable evidence of criminal activity by the president, he did make a blatant accusation that the president is corrupt. The investigations will continue and, at this point, it seems that the trails all point toward Michael Flynn.

The investigation of Michael Flynn is at the center of the dispute between James Comey and President Trump. In Comey’s opening statement, the former director claimed that it was the investigation of Flynn that prompted Trump’s alleged request that, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy.”

Who is Michael Flynn? Flynn is a retired US Army general who rose to command the Defense Intelligence Agency under President Obama. He served honorably in both the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters of the War on Terror. Flynn abruptly retired a year early from his position at the DIA, apparently under pressure from the Obama Administration. Sean Spicer confirmed in May that Barack Obama had warned the Trump camp about getting too close to Flynn.

In fact, Flynn became an early advisor to the Trump campaign and was considered as a vice presidential candidate. Flynn eventually was appointed as President Trump’s National Security Advisor after delivering a fiery speech to the Republican National Convention.

As National Security Advisor, Flynn lasted just over three weeks. The issue was false statements that Flynn had made to Vice President Pence, Press Secretary Spicer and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. Before the election and during the transition, Flynn had secret communications with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak in which he discussed sanctions that the Obama Administration had imposed on Russia in response their interference in the election. Flynn denied discussing the sanctions until the Washington Post reported that leaks revealed that there was evidence from surveillance that Flynn was not being truthful.

Even after Flynn’s duplicity was revealed, Trump waited 18 days before finally deciding to fire him. Shortly after the Flynn’s dismissal on the basis of loss of trust, The Hill reported that Trump called him “a wonderful man” and said that the media had treated him “badly.” The is in sharp contrast to the firing of Comey, who was attacked by Trump on Twitter in the days after his dismissal.

Since leaving the White House, Flynn’s troubles have only gotten worse. Flynn is under investigation for failing to disclose a $33,000 payment from the Russian state-owned propaganda network, RT, after leaving the DIA. The New York Times reported in April that Flynn initially failed to disclose other payments from “companies linked to Russia.”

Flynn also may have broken the law by doing consulting work that benefitted the government of Turkey without the permission of the US government. After being fired by Trump, Flynn registered with the US government as a paid foreign agent for work done the year before that could have aided the Turkish government. Flynn may have also failed to fully disclose his contracts and payments from the Turkish consulting work.

Further, the Wall Street Journal reported that Flynn met with Turkish government contacts last summer, while he was still working for the Trump campaign, and discussed the possibility of returning Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric that Turkey blames for last summer’s failed military coup, without going through legal US extradition procedures. Former CIA Director James Woolsey said the discussion involved “a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away.” Woolsey said he did not hear a specific plan and would have objected if he had.

Even before Donald Trump was nominated as the Republican candidate, Flynn drew criticism for his ties to Russia. In December 2015, Flynn was paid $45,000 by RT to speak at the network’s 10^th anniversary gala. The network also paid airfare for the trip and hosted Flynn at a luxury hotel in Moscow according to NBC News. Flynn sat at the same table as Russian President Vladimir Putin at the event.

In 2013, as head of the DIA, Flynn arranged a controversial trip to Russia for a group of US intelligence officers with the goal of building a working relationship with the GRU, Russian military intelligence. Flynn planned to host GRU officers in the US, but the Russian invasion of Crimea led to chilled relations between the two countries.

There are many questions about Mike Flynn that are unanswered. There is not even a definitive answer on how Flynn and Trump came to know each other. In an interview with the New Yorker, Flynn claimed he hit it off immediately with Trump in an August 2015 meeting in New York. In his interview with NBC News in May 2017, Trump denied knowing Flynn in 2015 In any case, Flynn was identified as an advisor to Trump by February 2016.

Trump’s relationship with Michael Flynn is central to the question of whether the president tried to interfere in the investigation of Flynn and whether he abused his authority in firing Director Comey. Trump is also alleged to have asked other intelligence officials to back off from the Flynn investigation. When asked by senators, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Advisor Mike Rogers said that they have never been “pressured” to interfere in an investigation. Neither would answer the question of whether Trump had ever broached the subject, however.

Right now, even after James Comey’s testimony, there are far more questions than answers. At this point, it is unknown whether a crime has been committed by either Mike Flynn or Donald Trump, but if there has been no crime then what has the White House cover-up been about? Did President Trump act illegally to protect Flynn? If so, why? Why did Trump really fire Comey? And why fire him when he did, months after taking office and seemingly out of the blue? The timing of the firing endangered the Republican legislative agenda at a time when the Republican health care reform had just passed the House and the party was looking towards tax reform.

Mike Flynn seems to hold many of the answers, but he isn’t talking. The retired general is invoking his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination and refusing to comply with a subpoena to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee.  Flynn also initially refused to comply with a subpoena for personal documents relating to his businesses. Eventually Flynn agreed to provide some documents after senators issued subpoenas his businesses as well.

With Special Counsel Bob Mueller likely investigating Flynn alongside the Senate Intelligence Committee, the probe into the Russian interference in the election and possible collaboration by members of the Trump campaign isn’t over yet. It’s just getting started and the relationship between President Trump and Gen. Flynn is likely to generate many more headlines before it’s over. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump called Comey a 'Nut Job'

It wouldn’t be Friday afternoon without a new bombshell from the Trump Administration. The latest installment in the continuing saga of President Trump is that he allegedly told the Russian delegation in the White House last week that former FBI Director James Comey was a “nut job” and that his firing had relieved the “great” pressure from the Russia investigation.

“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Trump reportedly told the Russians per the New York Times, adding, “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

Trump also reportedly told the visiting Russians, “I’m not under investigation.”

The comments were attributed them to a “White House document that contained Mr. Trump’s comments [and] was based on notes taken from inside the Oval Office and has been circulated as the official account of the meeting.” The story adds that “one [American] official read quotations to The Times, and a second official confirmed the broad outlines of the discussion.”

The Times story reports that Press Secretary Sean Spicer did not dispute the account. “By grandstanding and politicizing the investigation into Russia’s actions, James Comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to engage and negotiate with Russia,” Spicer said in a written statement. “The investigation would have always continued, and obviously, the termination of Comey would not have ended it. Once again, the real story is that our national security has been undermined by the leaking of private and highly classified conversations.”

The meeting with the Russians occurred the day after the firing of Comey was announced. It is the same meeting in which Trump reportedly gave the visiting Russians classified information. It is not clear whether the comments were made before or after the president discussed the classified material.

An additional US official cited in the article described Trump’s comments as a negotiating tactic. According to the Times, “The idea… was to create a sense of obligation with Russian officials and to coax concessions out of [Russian Foreign Minister] Mr. Lavrov — on Syria, Ukraine and other issues — by saying that Russian meddling in last year’s election had created enormous political problems for Mr. Trump.”

The Trump Administration has not been consistent about the rationale for Comey’s firing. At various times, the president has suggested that Comey was fired based on the recommendation of Justice Department officials and that Mr. Trump made the decision and had asked for the recommendations himself. At one point, Trump cited the “Russia thing” to NBC News as part of his justification for the firing.

In related news, the Twitter forecast is for an impending tweetstorm tomorrow morning.  

Originally published on The Resurgent

Why Does Russia Keep Popping Up in the Trump Administration?

There is an old saying that says where there is smoke, there is fire. These days, if Russia was smoke, the Trump Administration would be a four-alarm blaze. The question is why Russia is a recurring subject within the Trump Administration.

The rumors of Russian influence within the Trump Administration go back as far as Trump’s announcement of his candidacy. Rumors surfaced quickly about Trump’s longstanding business ties to Russia and The Hill noted that the Kremlin had funded nationalist opposition groups in several countries, such as Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France, which recently came close to winning the presidency.

Several of Trump’s former advisors were linked to Russia and Vladimir Putin. First to go was Paul Manafort, Trump’s first campaign manager. Manafort was a political consultant for Ukrainian dictator and Putin ally, Viktor Yanukovych, for 10 years until he was toppled by a revolution in 2014. Trump fired Manafort in August 2016.

Carter Page was a foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign. Page was forced to take a leave of absence from the Trump campaign after allegations that he met with Russian officials on a trip to Moscow. Page was apparently the target of FBI surveillance for his links to Russia.

Roger Stone, another Trump campaign aide, claimed to have communicated with WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, and may have had foreknowledge of the WikiLeaks dump of Podesta emails in October 2016. WikiLeaks is widely believed to be a Russian front organization. Stone claims that he resigned from the Trump campaign, while Trump says he was fired.

Michael Flynn survived the campaign to become National Security Advisor. Unfortunately, shortly after Trump took office, Flynn was forced to resign for lying about contacts that he had with the Russian ambassador.

Amid the rumors of Trump campaign officials’ links to Russia, candidate Trump called upon Russia to “find the 30,000 emails that are missing” from Hillary Clinton’s server. When Trump made the statement, it was common knowledge that Russian fingerprints were all over the first hack of the Democratic National Committee a month earlier. The hack of John Podesta’s email account has also been traced to Russia.

After the election, when briefed on the evidence for Russian interference in the election, President-elect Trump finally admitted that “Russian entities” were responsible for the hacking in January, a conclusion that most other observers had long since reached. Even then, he denied that the interference was aimed at helping his campaign.  

While there is so far no smoking gun that members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Russians on the hacking and election tampering, Lawfare Blog notes that “cooperation [between the Trump campaign and Russian hackers] was an open and public feature of the campaign. It included open encouragement of the Russians to hack Democratic targets; denial that they had done so; encouragement of WikiLeaks, which was publicly known to be effectively a publishing arm of the Russian operation, in publishing the fruits of the hacks; and publicly trumpeting the contents of stolen emails.”

Writing for Just Security, Julian Sanchez argues that secret contacts between the campaign and the Putin government were not needed. “Russia’s efforts on Trump’s behalf were, for the most part, pretty open, even if Trump affected not to notice them,” he says. “Trump’s praise of Vladimir Putin—grounded in an affection that long predates his political career—was public, as was his gleeful exploitation of the fruits of hacks against his opponents and encouragement of more of the same, as was his attempt to exculpate Russia long after the intelligence community had reached consensus about their responsibility, as was his use on the campaign trail of stories pushed out by Russian state media.  Trump could see they were helping him, they could see he appreciated it and was reciprocating. What, exactly, would have been the marginal benefit of some further secret communication making this happy symbiosis a matter of explicit agreement?  Collusion would have been redundant.”

At this point, it is Trump himself keeping the Russia scandal alive. After the firing of FBI Director James Comey, Trump told NBC’s Lester Holt, “And in fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said 'you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won'.” This shocking statement confirmed charges by the critics that the firing was at least partly due to Comey’s handling of the investigation of Russia’s election interference and contacts with the Trump campaign.

When President Trump defended rather than denied his sharing of classified material with the Russian ambassador and foreign minister, it was simply the latest in a long line of contacts between the two organizations. Like many of the other contacts, Trump’s sharing of classified material was probably legal, but ethically questionable and almost certainly unwise.

Why does Russia keep popping up in the Trump Administration? Because Donald Trump encouraged the Russian interference in the campaign and – knowingly or unknowingly – hired a plethora of pro-Putin advisors. The president’s clumsy attempts to deflect the investigation into the campaign’s Russia ties and ensure that the subject won’t go away anytime soon.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Comey confirms investigation of Trump campaign ties to Russia

Speaking before the House Intelligence Committee, FBI Director James Comey has confirmed that there is an ongoing investigation regarding Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Director Comey said in his opening statement that the FBI does not usually confirm or deny ongoing investigations, but did so in this case due to the extraordinary public interest.

“As you know, our practice is not to confirm the existence of ongoing investigations, especially those investigations that involve classified matters, but, in unusual circumstances when it is in the public interest it may be appropriate to do so, as Justice Department policies recognize,” Comey told the committee. “This is one of those circumstances.”

“I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election,” Comey continued. “That includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts. As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment as to whether any crimes were committed.”

Comey went on to say that he could not make more specific comments because the investigation was ongoing. He also asked that people avoid speculation based on his inability to give specifics. Director Comey promised to “follow the facts wherever they lead,” but declined to give a timetable for the investigation.

In his opening statement, Director Comey did not address President Trump’s claims that the Obama Administration had “wiretapped” the Trump Tower during the campaign.

Last year, President Trump criticized Director Comey for failing to recommend prosecution for Hillary Clinton last summer, but then reversed himself and praised Comey after his letter to members of Congress detailing the discovery of new Clinton emails prior to the election. President Trump ultimately decided to allow Comey, whose 10-year term began in 2013, to continue in his role as FBI Director.

View Director Comey’s entire statement here.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Hillary Clinton is being hammered in the final days before the election. The news of renewed interest in the FBI probe of her handling of classified information shook the campaign last week. Now comes a new report that FBI agents investigating the Clinton Foundation thought that they had enough information to warrant more aggressive measures, but were allegedly told to “stand down” by the Justice Department.

The Wall St. Journal reports that the investigation into the Clinton Foundation began as a result of the book, “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich” by Peter Schweizer. The investigation began in the summer of 2015 and is ongoing.

Citing multiple sources from several different agencies, the Journal reports that there was a conflict between the FBI and the Department of Justice over the strength of the case.  The investigation into whether Clinton Foundation donors received favorable treatment from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was perceived as weak by the upper levels of the FBI and DOJ, but investigators believed that there were promising leads that they were not allowed to follow.

The discovery of a trove of emails on a computer belonging to Anthony Wiener, the husband of Huma Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Clinton, may have revealed some of the limits placed on FBI investigators. Politico reported that the agents had never asked Clinton staffers for their personal email devices and may have even lacked subpoena power.

Much of the debate stemmed from secret recordings of a suspect in a public corruption case. In a recorded conversation, the suspect, whose identity was not disclosed, discussed alleged deals made by the Clintons. The investigators could not corroborate the details of the deals, but wanted to investigate further. Prosecutors disagreed. The Justice Department felt that the information was hearsay and too weak to warrant a more aggressive investigation.

The FBI agents and the DOJ became more frustrated with each other as the investigators continued to try to pursue the case. The FBI pushed for more leeway while DOJ officials were irritated by the failure of the FBI to act discreetly and follow instructions. In February, the DOJ allegedly told FBI investigators to “stand down” according to the Journal sources.

The Journal reports that Robert Capers, the US Attorney for Brooklyn, was at the center of the brouhaha. Sources say that Capers told both sides what they wanted to hear, which exacerbated tensions. At one point, Capers allegedly told DOJ officials that the FBI “won’t let it go,” prompting a call to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe on Aug. 12. In the call, an unnamed senior DOJ official complained that the FBI was not following instructions on the case. McCabe allegedly asked, “Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?” The DOJ official answered, “Of course not.”

Regardless of whether the case was truly too weak to pursue or the Justice Department was actively running interference to protect the Clintons, the result is the same. Both the DOJ and the FBI have egg on their face and the reputation of their agencies have been tarnished. Rather than having the problems of the Clinton Foundation aired a year before the election, Mrs. Clinton’s once-assured victory may be fading with yet another October surprise.

Originally published on The Resurgent