Trumpublicons: Foreign Influence/Grifting in '16 US Election

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Re: NSA Chief Russia Hacked '16 Election Congress Must Inves

Postby Nordic » Sat Dec 10, 2016 1:09 am

Putin meddling in the elections here?

Total crock of shit.

And sure he preferred Trump over Hillary. HILLARY WANTED A WAR WITH RUSSIA.

So not wanting to have a war with the US makes him bad??

Da fuck?!
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Re: NSA Chief Russia Hacked '16 Election Congress Must Inves

Postby SonicG » Sat Dec 10, 2016 6:26 am

I understand your view on this Nordic, but this thing seems to have legs.
Internecine intelligence agency wars, anybody?
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Re: NSA Chief Russia Hacked '16 Election Congress Must Inves

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Dec 10, 2016 7:18 am

Nordic needs to get back to what he thinks is the really important stuff...chasing underground non existent tunnels


Total crock of shit

Total deflection

I think this is the really important stuff


This is a big deal ...this is a very big deal

Mitch McConnell helped Russia interfere in the U. S. election

FBI helped Trump 11 days before the election


You either believe the CIA or you believe Mitch McConnell and Trump

I wonder what Trump's CIA pick thinks of him trashing the CIA?

I'm going with the CIA and I can not wait to hear the facts that will become available before Trump is sworn in


Josh Marshall ✔@joshtpm
Look. For everyone casting stones, it's not like Trump asked Russia to hack Clintons emails.

Oh wait



Trump Asks Russia to Hack Hillary’s ‘Missing’ Emails
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/201 ... ce=copyurl



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Steve Benen @stevebenen
Don't just read the headline and lede on this one. Keep going, paying particular attention to the White House/Gang of 12 meeting. https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/stat ... 4533039104
7:09 PM - 9 Dec 2016


Russia withheld hacked RNC emails to help Trump’s campaign: report
Elizabeth Preza ELIZABETH PREZA
10 DEC 2016 AT 00:16 ET


A report affirming the intelligence community’s consensus that Russia hacked the U.S. election in an attempt to sway the results in favor of Donald Trump was bolstered Friday by a conclusion that Russians hacked the Republican National Committee—then sat on the information.

The New York Times Friday, citing american intelligence agencies, revealed that in addition to attacks on Democratic organizations, the Russians also accessed sensitive RNC information but declined to release the documents to the public.

Negating WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s claim that “no state parties” provided the transparency organization with damning emails stolen from Hillary Clinton aide John Podesta, the Times reports, “Intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russians gave the Democrats’ documents to WikiLeaks.”

“We now have high confidence that they hacked the D.N.C. and the R.N.C., and conspicuously released no documents” from the RNC, one senior administration official told the Times.

The Times writes:

“In briefings to the White House and Congress, intelligence officials, including those from the C.I.A. and the National Security Agency, have identified individual Russian officials they believe were responsible. But none have been publicly penalized.”
A report released Friday by the Washington Post revealed a CIA assessment concluded Russia’s interference in the election was prompted not by a desire to undermine the U.S. electoral system, but to specifically elevate Trump to the presidency.

Despite the evidence, Trump—along with other Republican leaders—insist there is no evidence supporting the conclusion that the Russians hacked the election in order to help elect Trump.

“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” a transition team statement reads, referring to reports that Russians interfered to elect President-elect Trump. “The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’”

The RNC has repeatedly denied that their information was hacked during the presidential election. GOP Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in September that intel briefing revealed hackers targets the RNC.

“Yes, they have hacked into the Republican National Committee,” McCaul said at the time. “So this is, again, they are not picking sides here I don’t think. They are hacking into both political parties.”

“We’re not sure why they’ve released some documents and not others,” he added.

RNC chief operating officer immediately refuted McCaul’s claim. “There has been no known breach of the RNC’s cyber network,” said Sean Cairncross told CNN in September.

Shortly after Cairncross’s statement, McCail recanted his interview with Blitzer.

“I misspoke by asserting that the RNC was hacked,” he said in a statement. “What I had intended to say was that in addition to the DNC hack, Republican political operatives have also been hacked.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/russia ... gn-report/



Donald Trump takes aim at US Intelligence
Stephen Collinson ProfileCNN Digital Expansion DC Elise Labott
By Stephen Collinson and Elise Labott, CNN
Updated 12:49 AM ET, Sat December 10, 2016
Obama orders Russian hacking probe

Obama orders Russian hacking probe 03:01
Story highlights
Intelligence agencies have warned against Russians trying to get Donald Trump elected
The President-elect has publicly bristled at suggestions of election tampering
(CNN)President-elect Donald Trump's transition team slammed the CIA Friday, following reports the agency has concluded that Russia intervened in the election to help him win.

In a stunning response to widening claims of a Russian espionage operation targeting the presidential race, Trump's camp risked an early feud with the Intelligence community on which he will rely for top secret assessments of the greatest threats facing the United States.
"These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction," the transition said in a terse, unsigned statement.
"The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It's now time to move on and 'Make America Great Again.'"
The sharp pushback to revelations in The Washington Post, which followed an earlier CNN report on alleged Russian interference in the election, represented a startling rebuke from an incoming White House to the CIA.
The transition team's reference to the agency's most humiliating recent intelligence misfire — over its conclusion that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — threatens to cast an early cloud over relations between the Trump White House and the CIA.
The top leadership of the agency that presided over the Iraq failure during the Bush administration has long since been replaced. But the comments from Trump's camp will cause concern in the Intelligence community about the incoming President's attitude to America's spy agencies. CNN reported this week that Trump is getting intelligence briefings only once a week. Several previous presidents preparing for the inauguration had a more intense briefing schedule.
Multiple sources with knowledge of the investigation into Russia's hacking told CNN last week that the US intelligence community is increasingly confident that Russian meddling in the US election was intended to steer the election toward Trump, rather than simply to undermine or in other ways disrupt the political process.
On Friday, the Post cited US officials as saying that intelligence agencies have identified individuals connected to the Russian government who gave Wikileaks thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta.
Trump has repeatedly said there is no evidence to suggest that President Vladimir Putin's Russia, with which he has vowed to improve relations, played a nefarious role in the US election.
"I don't believe it. I don't believe they interfered," Trump said in an interview for the latest issue of Time magazine, adding that he thought intelligence community accusations about Russian interventions in the election were politically motivated.
Trump has also been highly sensitive to any suggestion that he did not win the election fair and square, including claiming that he is only trailing Clinton in the popular vote because of a huge trove of illegal votes -- a claim for which he has provided no evidence.
Earlier Friday, the White House said that President Barack Obama had ordered a full review into hacking aimed at influencing US elections going back to 2008.
Russia has demanded evidence of its alleged involvement in the election and denied any wrongdoing.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/10/politics/ ... n-hacking/



The top Senate Republican had a defiant response to intelligence ...
Business Insider-6 hours ago
In a confidential briefing, McConnell reportedly expressed doubt about intelligence findings that Russia aided efforts to boost Trump, ostensibly ...
http://www.businessinsider.com/mitch-mc ... on-2016-12


Sure McConnell is defiant wouldn't you be if there was proof that Russia interfered in U. S, elections and you did nothing about it?
Actually you did everything in your power to hold up the information until after the election?

And the payback was that your wife got a great job from Trump because of your actions

And the payback is that EXXON and Russia will get back on track with that 500 billion dollar deal

Image

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The CIA concluded Russia worked to elect Trump. Republicans now face an impossible choice.

On the other hand, if Republicans downplay the issue, they risk giving a pass to an antagonistic foreign power whom significant majorities of Americans and members of Congress don't trust and who, if the evidence is accurate, wields significant power to wage successful cyber warfare with the United States.

But for congressional Republicans, the evidence is increasingly getting to the point where they simply can't ignore it and some of them are feeling compelled to act - in a way that Trump isn't likely to take kindly to.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... story.html



Matthew Dowd ‏@matthewjdowd 1h1 hour ago
Signs you might not be an American patriot:1. You knock the CIA to defend Putin/Russia. 2. You lie to the public; 3. You oppose a free press


George TakeiVerified account ‏@GeorgeTakei 11h11 hours ago
The CIA concluded in its assessment that Russia actively interfered to help Trump win. This should concern all Americans. We want answers.



Keith OlbermannVerified account
‏@KeithOlbermann
After CIA assessment on Russia trying to swing election to Trump: From 9/28 "Is @realDonaldTrump loyal to the US?"


Malcolm Nance Retweeted
Mo Elleithee ‏@MoElleithee 10h10 hours ago
Mo Elleithee Retweeted Olivia Nuzzi
The President-elect has just attacked US Intelligence agencies, in an attempt to defend Russia.

For real.



Secret CIA assessment says Russia intervened not just to meddle but specifically to elect Trump

By Meteor Blades
Friday Dec 09, 2016 · 8:02 PM CST

Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima, and Greg Miller report that the CIA told “key senators” in a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill last week that the agency’s intelligence has shown Russia intervened in the U.S. election with the “quite clear” intention of getting Donald Trump elected:

Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances. [...]

...intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin “directing” the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, a second senior U.S. official said. Those actors, according to the official, were “one step” removed from the Russian government, rather than government employees. Moscow has in the past used middlemen to participate in sensitive intelligence operations so it has plausible deniability.

If Russia was the culprit it could have acted just like the Mafia. Or the FBI and CIA when they have people infiltrate leftist organizations and engage in black ops. You don't send capos or special agents, you outsource with contract labor, specifically to avoid producing intelligence tying you to the people doing your dirty work. That final sentence certainly applies in capitals other than Moscow. "Plausible deniability" was, after all, invented in America.

Whatever the case, the American people deserve to know more details than provided by anonymous third-party sources quoted on Fridays.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/12/1 ... lect-Trump


Russia Hacked Republican Committee but Kept Data, U.S. Concludes

President Obama giving a speech in Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday. He has ordered a comprehensive report on the Russian efforts. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — American intelligence agencies have concluded with “high confidence” that Russia acted covertly in the latter stages of the presidential campaign to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances and promote Donald J. Trump, according to senior administration officials.

They based that conclusion, in part, on another finding — which they say was also reached with high confidence — that the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks.

In the months before the election, it was largely documents from Democratic Party systems that were leaked to the public. Intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russians gave the Democrats’ documents to WikiLeaks.

Republicans have a different explanation for why no documents from their networks were ever released. Over the past several months, officials from the Republican committee have consistently said that their networks were not compromised, asserting that only the accounts of individual Republicans were attacked. On Friday, a senior committee official said he had no comment.

Mr. Trump’s transition office issued a statement Friday evening reflecting the deep divisions that emerged between his campaign and the intelligence agencies over Russian meddling in the election. “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” the statement said. “The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’”

One senior government official, who had been briefed on an F.B.I. investigation into the matter, said that while there were attempts to penetrate the Republican committee’s systems, they were not successful.

But the intelligence agencies’ conclusions that the hacking efforts were successful, which have been presented to President Obama and other senior officials, add a complex wrinkle to the question of what the Kremlin’s evolving objectives were in intervening in the American presidential election.

“We now have high confidence that they hacked the D.N.C. and the R.N.C., and conspicuously released no documents” from the Republican organization, one senior administration official said, referring to the Russians.

It is unclear how many files were stolen from the Republican committee; in some cases, investigators never get a clear picture. It is also far from clear that Russia’s original intent was to support Mr. Trump, and many intelligence officials — and former officials in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign — believe that the primary motive of the Russians was to simply disrupt the campaign and undercut confidence in the integrity of the vote.

The Russians were as surprised as everyone else at Mr. Trump’s victory, intelligence officials said. Had Mrs. Clinton won, they believe, emails stolen from the Democratic committee and from senior members of her campaign could have been used to undercut her legitimacy. The intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia tried to help Mr. Trump was first reported by The Washington Post.

In briefings to the White House and Congress, intelligence officials, including those from the C.I.A. and the National Security Agency, have identified individual Russian officials they believe were responsible. But none have been publicly penalized.

It is possible that in hacking into the Republican committee, Russian agents were simply hedging their bets. The attack took place in the spring, the senior officials said, about the same time that a group of hackers believed to be linked to the G.R.U., Russia’s military intelligence agency, stole the emails of senior officials of the Democratic National Committee. Intelligence agencies believe that the Republican committee hack was carried out by the same Russians who penetrated the Democratic committee and other Democratic groups.

The finding about the Republican committee is expected to be included in a detailed report of “lessons learned” that Mr. Obama has ordered intelligence agencies to assemble before he leaves office on Jan. 20. That report is intended, in part, to create a comprehensive history of the Russian effort to influence the election, and to solidify the intelligence findings before Mr. Trump is sworn in.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly cast doubt about any intelligence suggesting a Russian effort to influence the election. “I don’t believe they interfered,” he told Time magazine in an interview published this week. He suggested that hackers could come from China, or that “it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey.”

Intelligence officials and private cybersecurity companies believe that the Democratic National Committee was hacked by two different Russian cyberunits. One, called “Cozy Bear” or “A.P.T. 29” by some Western security experts, is believed to have spent months inside the D.N.C. computer network, as well as other government and political institutions, but never made public any of the documents it took. (A.P.T. stands for “Advanced Persistent Threat,” which usually describes a sophisticated state-sponsored cyberintruder.)

The other, the G.R.U.-controlled unit known as “Fancy Bear,” or “A.P.T. 28,” is believed to have created two outlets on the internet, Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks, to make Democratic documents public. Many of the documents were also provided to WikiLeaks, which released them over many weeks before the Nov. 8 election.

Representative Michael McCaul, the Texas Republican who is the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said on CNN in September that the R.N.C. had been hacked by Russia, but then quickly withdrew the claim.

Mr. McCaul, who was considered by Mr. Trump for secretary of Homeland Security, initially told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, “It’s important to note, Wolf, that they have not only hacked into the D.N.C. but also into the R.N.C.” He added that “the Russians have basically hacked into both parties at the national level, and that gives us all concern about what their motivations are.”

Minutes later, the R.N.C. issued a statement denying that it had been hacked. Mr. McCaul subsequently said that he had misspoken, but that it was true that “Republican political operatives” had been the target of Russian hacking. So were establishment Republicans with no ties to the campaign, including former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

Mr. McCaul may have had in mind a collection of more than 200 emails of Republican officials and activists that appeared this year on the website DCLeaks.com. That website got far more attention for the many Democratic Party documents it posted.

The messages stolen from Republicans have drawn little attention because most are routine business emails from local Republican Party officials in several states, congressional staff members and party activists.

Among those whose emails were posted was Peter W. Smith, who runs a venture capital firm in Chicago and has long been active in “opposition research” for the Republican Party. He said he was unaware that his emails had been hacked until he was called by a reporter on Thursday.

He said he believes that his material came from a hack of the Illinois Republican Party.

“I’m not upset at all,” he said. “I try in my communications, quite frankly, not to say anything that would be embarrassing if made public.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/us/ob ... -hack.html


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Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: NSA Chief Russia Hacked '16 Election Congress Must Inves

Postby DrEvil » Sat Dec 10, 2016 8:51 am

I posted this elsewhere but it's so full of juicy gossip it bears repeating:

A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump
Has the bureau investigated this material?
David CornOct. 31, 2016 6:52 PM

On Friday, FBI Director James Comey set off a political blast when he informed congressional leaders that the bureau had stumbled across emails that might be pertinent to its completed inquiry into Hillary Clinton's handling of emails when she was secretary of state. The Clinton campaign and others criticized Comey for intervening in a presidential campaign by breaking with Justice Department tradition and revealing information about an investigation—information that was vague and perhaps ultimately irrelevant—so close to Election Day. On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid upped the ante. He sent Comey a fiery letter saying the FBI chief may have broken the law and pointed to a potentially greater controversy: "In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government…The public has a right to know this information."

Reid's missive set off a burst of speculation on Twitter and elsewhere. What was he referring to regarding the Republican presidential nominee? At the end of August, Reid had written to Comey and demanded an investigation of the "connections between the Russian government and Donald Trump's presidential campaign," and in that letter he indirectly referred to Carter Page, an American businessman cited by Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers, who had financial ties to Russia and had recently visited Moscow. Last month, Yahoo News reported that US intelligence officials were probing the links between Page and senior Russian officials. (Page has called accusations against him "garbage.") On Monday, NBC News reported that the FBI has mounted a preliminary inquiry into the foreign business ties of Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chief. But Reid's recent note hinted at more than the Page or Manafort affairs. And a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump—and that the FBI requested more information from him.

Does this mean the FBI is investigating whether Russian intelligence has attempted to develop a secret relationship with Trump or cultivate him as an asset? Was the former intelligence officer and his material deemed credible or not? An FBI spokeswoman says, "Normally, we don't talk about whether we are investigating anything." But a senior US government official not involved in this case but familiar with the former spy tells Mother Jones that he has been a credible source with a proven record of providing reliable, sensitive, and important information to the US government.

In June, the former Western intelligence officer—who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters and who now works with a US firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients—was assigned the task of researching Trump's dealings in Russia and elsewhere, according to the former spy and his associates in this American firm. This was for an opposition research project originally financed by a Republican client critical of the celebrity mogul. (Before the former spy was retained, the project's financing switched to a client allied with Democrats.) "It started off as a fairly general inquiry," says the former spook, who asks not to be identified. But when he dug into Trump, he notes, he came across troubling information indicating connections between Trump and the Russian government. According to his sources, he says, "there was an established exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin of mutual benefit."

This was, the former spy remarks, "an extraordinary situation." He regularly consults with US government agencies on Russian matters, and near the start of July on his own initiative—without the permission of the US company that hired him—he sent a report he had written for that firm to a contact at the FBI, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates, who asked not to be identified. (He declines to identify the FBI contact.) The former spy says he concluded that the information he had collected on Trump was "sufficiently serious" to share with the FBI.

Mother Jones has reviewed that report and other memos this former spy wrote. The first memo, based on the former intelligence officer's conversations with Russian sources, noted, "Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance." It maintained that Trump "and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals." It claimed that Russian intelligence had "compromised" Trump during his visits to Moscow and could "blackmail him." It also reported that Russian intelligence had compiled a dossier on Hillary Clinton based on "bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls."

The former intelligence officer says the response from the FBI was "shock and horror." The FBI, after receiving the first memo, did not immediately request additional material, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates. Yet in August, they say, the FBI asked him for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify his sources. The former spy forwarded to the bureau several memos—some of which referred to members of Trump's inner circle. After that point, he continued to share information with the FBI. "It's quite clear there was or is a pretty substantial inquiry going on," he says.

"This is something of huge significance, way above party politics," the former intelligence officer comments. "I think [Trump's] own party should be aware of this stuff as well."

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment regarding the memos. In the past, Trump has declared, "I have nothing to do with Russia."

The FBI is certainly investigating the hacks attributed to Russia that have hit American political targets, including the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, the chairman of Clinton's presidential campaign. But there have been few public signs of whether that probe extends to examining possible contacts between the Russian government and Trump. (In recent weeks, reporters in Washington have pursued anonymous online reports that a computer server related to the Trump Organization engaged in a high level of activity with servers connected to Alfa Bank, the largest private bank in Russia. On Monday, a Slate investigation detailed the pattern of unusual server activity but concluded, "We don't yet know what this [Trump] server was for, but it deserves further explanation." In an email to Mother Jones, Hope Hicks, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, maintains, "The Trump Organization is not sending or receiving any communications from this email server. The Trump Organization has no communication or relationship with this entity or any Russian entity.")

According to several national security experts, there is widespread concern in the US intelligence community that Russian intelligence, via hacks, is aiming to undermine the presidential election—to embarrass the United States and delegitimize its democratic elections. And the hacks appear to have been designed to benefit Trump. In August, Democratic members of the House committee on oversight wrote Comey to ask the FBI to investigate "whether connections between Trump campaign officials and Russian interests may have contributed to these [cyber] attacks in order to interfere with the US. presidential election." In September, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Adam Schiff, the senior Democrats on, respectively, the Senate and House intelligence committees, issued a joint statement accusing Russia of underhanded meddling: "Based on briefings we have received, we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election. At the least, this effort is intended to sow doubt about the security of our election and may well be intended to influence the outcomes of the election." The Obama White House has declared Russia the culprit in the hacking capers, expressed outrage, and promised a "proportional" response.

There's no way to tell whether the FBI has confirmed or debunked any of the allegations contained in the former spy's memos. But a Russian intelligence attempt to co-opt or cultivate a presidential candidate would mark an even more serious operation than the hacking.

In the letter Reid sent to Comey on Sunday, he pointed out that months ago he had asked the FBI director to release information on Trump's possible Russia ties. Since then, according to a Reid spokesman, Reid has been briefed several times. The spokesman adds, "He is confident that he knows enough to be extremely alarmed."

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... nald-trump

Would be just a tad ironic if it turned out the Trump supporters elected an KGB FSB asset.
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Re: NSA Chief Russia Hacked '16 Election Congress Must Inves

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Dec 10, 2016 9:10 am

The new White Orange House :P

Image

or were you talking about

Image
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: NSA Chief Russia Hacked '16 Election Congress Must Inves

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Dec 10, 2016 10:09 am

seemslikeadream » Thu Nov 17, 2016 11:16 am wrote:
AUTHOR: ANDY GREENBERG. ANDY GREENBERG SECURITY DATE OF PUBLICATION: 11.09.16.

TRUMP’S WIN SIGNALS OPEN SEASON FOR RUSSIA’S POLITICAL HACKERS


YESTERDAY, AMERICA ELECTED as president the apparently preferred candidate of Russia’s intelligence agencies. After a campaign season marred by the influence of hackers, including some widely believed to be on Vladimir Putin’s payroll, that outcome means more than a mandate for Trump and his coalition. For Russia, it will also be taken as a win for the chaos-injecting tactics of political hacks and leaks that the country’s operatives used to meddle in America’s election—and an incentive to try them elsewhere.

Following Donald Trump’s presidential win, and even in the weeks leading up to it, cybersecurity and foreign-policy watchers have warned that Russia’s government-sponsored hackers would be emboldened by the success of the recent string of intrusions and data dumps, including the hacks of the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Security firms that analyzed the breaches, and US intelligence agencies, have both linked those attacks to the Kremlin. That Russia perceives those operations as successful, experts say, will only encourage similar hacks aimed at shifting elections and sowing distrust of political processes in Western democracies, particularly those in Europe. “What they’ll learn from this is, ‘We did it, we got away with it, we got the outcome we wanted,'” says James Lewis, a cybersecurity-focused fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “This will only increase their desire to intervene.”

Fancy Bears Hit Europe
In fact, those interventions and intrusions are already underway. Since this summer’s breaches of the Democratic party, at least a dozen European organizations have also been targeted by the state-linked Russian hacker group known as Fancy Bear, or APT28, according to Dmitri Alperovitch, the chief technology officer of the security firm Crowdstrike, which identified Russia as the culprit behind the DNC hack in July. Several of those attempts have been successful, he says, and multiple American targets of the group have also been hacked but have yet to publicly reveal that they were compromised. A report out today from security firm Trend Micro confirms the group has continued to hit “various governments and embassies around the world” in just the last weeks. “They’ve continued their attempted intrusions of political entities pretty much unabated,” Alperovitch says.1

They’ve continued their attempted intrusions of political entities pretty much unabated.
CROWDSTRIKE CTO DMITRI ALPEROVITCH
Even before Trump’s win, Alperovitch says, he believes Russia considered Fancy Bear’s hacking operations a significant achievement. He points to the uncertainty and doubt the hacker group was able to instill in American electoral politics, with everyone from Bernie Sanders supporters to rightwing media to Donald Trump himself making arguments that the system was “rigged” in favor of Hillary Clinton. “I think they’ve gotten medals already,” Alperovitch told WIRED in an interview before Tuesday’s election. “They’ve had success beyond their wildest dreams.”

Alperovitch adds that he’s met with senior government officials across Europe who fear that the Kremlin’s ability to influence American electoral politics presages attacks aimed at upcoming elections in France and Germany, as well as the UK’s parliamentary vote on Brexit. “They’re concerned that the blueprint used now against the US will be used against them in upcoming election cycles,” says Alperovitch. “They’re concerned that the precedent that’s been set is that you can do this against the US, and if so, that they’ll be walked all over by Russia.”

Russia’s state-sponsored hackers targeting Western political institutions is, to be clear, hardly new. In just the past few years, hackers believed to be based in Russia have breached the White House and the State Department, for instance, even leading at one point last year to a temporary shutdown of the State Department’s email systems.

But compared with those silent espionage intrusions, the recent hacks have been increasingly brazen, with hacked emails and documents made public in order to influence American media and public opinion. By the time of the breach of the World Anti-Doping Agency in September, designed to implicate US athletes in suspect behavior, the hackers no longer even sought to hide their connection to Russia. The hackers published the medical files of high-profile US Olympians on the site Fancybears.net, and adorned them with GIFs of dancing bears.

No Clear Remedy
Those increasingly common techniques have blended hacking and propaganda in a way that American intelligence agencies haven’t in kind, says Thomas Rid, a cybersecurity-focused professor in the department of War Studies at King’s College London and author of Rise of the Machines. And Russia’s information operations only become more effective as Western democracies become increasingly polarized. Beyond Trump, Rid points to Brexit, the rise of the nationalist, nativist French party National Front, and a recent German poll in which respondents at both the extreme left and right said they had more trust in Putin than in Angela Merkel. “The ground is becoming more fertile for Russia’s influence operations,” says Rid. “Trump is the embodiment of that.”

Russia’s shift to bold, barely covert hacking operations has also no doubt stemmed partly from a sense of impunity. American intelligence agencies took months to publicly name the Russian government as the source of the DNC hack that came to light in July. Even then, the response has been murky: Despite Vice President Joe Biden’s assurances that the US would be “sending a message” to Putin intended to have “maximum impact,” it’s not clear if or how that counterattack happened.

Trump’s win may now delay America’s response or reduce its efficacy, says the CSIS’s Lewis. Even if the Obama administration carries out its response before Trump’s inauguration, Putin may doubt that any policy of deterrence would carry over to Trump’s administration—particularly given the fondness for Putin that Trump expressed on the campaign trail, his weak support for NATO, and the doubts Trump has publicly cast on attributing the DNC hack to Russia. After January, America’s account of grievances against Russia’s hackers could be wiped clean. “For Trump, there will be a before and an after” the election, says Lewis. “If they do something that hurts him, he’ll respond. But if it happened before the election, it’s over.”

All of that means Russia’s hacking spree may have just begun. Expect Fancy Bear and its habit of digitally disemboweling Western political targets to be an unwelcome fixture of Trump’s first term—and beyond.
https://www.wired.com/2016/11/trumps-wi ... l-hackers/


Russian involvement in US vote raises fears for European elections
CIA investigation may have implications for upcoming French and German polls, even raising doubts over integrity of Brexit vote

Saturday 10 December 2016 08.35 EST

The CIA’s conclusion that Russia covertly intervened to swing last month’s presidential election in favour of Donald Trump may not place the overall credibility of the result in doubt, but many will find that comforting assurance hard to swallow.

The classified CIA investigation, which has not been published, may also have implications for the integrity of Britain’s Brexit referendum last June, and how upcoming elections in France and Germany could be vulnerable to Russian manipulation. The latest revelations are not entirely new. What is fresh is the bald assertion that Moscow was working for Trump.

Democrats have been agitating for months for more decisive action by the White House following earlier reports of Russian-inspired hacking designed to undermine their candidate, Hillary Clinton. Some of the thousands of emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee and members of Clinton’s campaign staff that were leaked, reportedly by Russian proxies, were used to reinforce a key Trump campaign narrative, that of “Lying Hillary”.

Pre-empting the CIA’s disclosures, Barack Obama finally acceded on Friday to public pressure to investigate the full extent of Russian meddling, ordering a review reaching back to previous elections. “We have crossed a new threshold,” said Lisa Monaco, a top security adviser.

The suggestion that Russia’s interventions had limited or no impact on the outcome of one of the most divisive US elections in modern history will sit badly with ordinary voters, especially in closely-fought states such as Michigan, where a legal battle has been in progress over a possible recount.

Earlier in the year, the US government officially accused Russia of directing efforts to disrupt the election process, interfere with electronic voting machinery, spread disinformation, and generally discredit and confuse the democratic system.

In the event, Clinton lost the election in the electoral college, but won the popular vote. According to the Cook Political Report, a non-partisan organisation, Clinton obtained at least 65,527,625 votes, over 2.6 million more than Trump.

Confidence that Russian interference did not have a decisive impact will also be strained by Trump’s reaction to the CIA revelations. He derided the CIA as an organisation that had been wrong in the past about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. Trump is already at odds with the CIA director, John Brennan, who recently stated publicly that the president-elect’s pledge to tear up last year’s landmark nuclear deal with Iran would be “disastrous”.

Washington insiders say Trump is not even bothering to read the daily national intelligence briefs prepared for the president, which are traditionally shared with his incoming successor. That omission suggests Trump does not want to know some inconvenient truths about the election – and is heading for a tempestuous relationship with the US intelligence community.

Trump’s previous, favourable statements about Russia’s authoritarian president, Vladimir Putin, and suggestions that the Trump administration, once in office, will attempt to reach an accommodation with Moscow, have intensified critics’ concerns about possible collusion between the two self-styled strongmen.

Putin’s precondition for any meaningful reset in bilateral relations would be the lifting of US sanctions on Russia and de facto recognition of its 2014 annexation of Crimea. Achieving that goal would be seen as a considerable bonus for Moscow.

Obama’s role in this developing scandal is also coming under scrutiny. Members of Congress and White House officials told the Washington Post that Obama was worried that if he went public with evidence of Russian meddling during the election, he would be accused of using national intelligence resources to boost Clinton’s chances.

In the light of the CIA findings, which are supported by other US agencies, Obama’s approach now looks excessively cautious. Conversely, Republican senators who privately opposed earlier release of the Russia-related information because they feared it would harm Trump are now also open to criticism.

The CIA revelations shed new light on the timing and content of last week’s unusual public speech by the head of Britain’s MI6, Alex Younger. In remarks that were plainly directed at Russia, Younger said the UK and other European democracies faced a “fundamental threat” from hostile states employing cyber-attacks, propaganda and “subversion of the democratic process”.

“The risks at stake are profound and represent a fundamental threat to our sovereignty. They should be a concern to all those who share democratic values,” Younger warned.

Since MI6 is likely to have known in advance about the CIA’s latest findings concerning Moscow’s role in Trump’s election, there will be speculation that Younger was basing his statements, in part, on suspicions of Russian meddling in Britain’s Brexit referendum campaign.

Putin’s government was widely seen as favouring Brexit, as a way of assisting its long-term strategic aim of weakening and dividing Europe and Nato. Any evidence of direct or indirect Russian interference in the British referendum campaign would be politically explosive.

Concerns will also now be heightened over forthcoming presidential elections in France, where Marine Le Pen’s pro-Moscow Front National has sought Russian election funding, and in Germany, where Europe’s most influential leader and a long-time Putin adversary, Angela Merkel, faces a re-election battle against far-right groups in September.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... -elections
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: NSA Chief Russia Hacked '16 Election Congress Must Inves

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Dec 10, 2016 11:06 am

This morning

Harry Reid said the FBI had this information before the election and did nothing

The FBI deliberately held info Russia helping Trump

Comey should be investigated by Senate

Comey should resign

Reid was interviewed by NYT and the interview was left out of the story


John Dean ‏@JohnWDean 9h9 hours ago
The intel report on Russia's role in the 2016 election must be available for all electors before the electoral college meets Dec. 19.
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John Dean ‏@JohnWDean 11h11 hours ago
John Dean Retweeted Joe Perticone
Trump's remarkably inadequate response to the CIA assessment, not to mention attack on the CIA, which exists to serve the office of POTUS.John Dean added,

Joe Perticone @JoePerticone
Trump Transition Statement On Claims Of Foreign Interference In U.S. Elections
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John Dean ‏@JohnWDean 13h13 hours ago
John Dean Retweeted David Corn
Wow. This is deeply troubling. We have Russia's man heading to the White House. Trump is not only a fool, he may be Putin's tool.John Dean added,
David Corn @DavidCornDC
Explosive. CIA finds Moscow tried to help Trump AND GOP Hill leaders opposed calling out Russia for hacking. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-orders-review-of-russian-hacking-during-presidential-campaign/2016/12/09/31d6b300-be2a-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?postshare=7111481335261119&tid=ss_tw …
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Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: NSA Chief Russia Hacked '16 Election Congress Must Inves

Postby DrEvil » Sat Dec 10, 2016 11:23 am

seemslikeadream » Sat Dec 10, 2016 3:10 pm wrote:The new White Orange House :P

Image

or were you talking about

Image


The last one. Just watch as farm subsidies sky-rocket under Trump. He's in the pocket of small agriculture!

But it is a little strange that he's been lashing out at pretty much everyone on the entire planet except Russia. What makes one fascist thug so much better than all the others?
"I only read American. I want my fantasy pure." - Dave
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Re: NSA Chief Russia Hacked '16 Election Congress Must Inves

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Dec 10, 2016 11:44 am

here is the deal ...the Russians have hacked Democrats and Republicans ...when Trump/Republicans do not do what Russia wants them to do ...will the RNC hacks finally be leaked?

Just who does own the US of A now?

Republicans your time is gonna come....letting the Russians interfere with U.S. elections now means they will interfere with you down the road...and you know they have the goods on you too!


Lying, cheating, hurting, that's all you seem to do

Always the same, playing your game,
Drive me insane, trouble is gonna come to you,
.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMKjmolSHCE


Watch out Republicana, no longer
Is the joke gonna be on my heart.
You been bad to me Republicans,
But it's coming back home to you.

Your time is gonna come
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: NSA Chief Russia Hacked '16 Election Congress Must Inves

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Dec 10, 2016 12:18 pm

seemslikeadream » Tue Nov 08, 2016 6:40 pm wrote:hopefully so... :roll:

Pelosi: Comey became ‘leading Republican political operative in the country’
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that FBI Director James B. Comey’s decision to reveal possible new evidence in the Hillary Clinton email probe likely cost Democrats seats in the House.

“He became the leading Republican political operative in the country, wittingly or unwittingly,” she told reporters during a brief appearance at Democratic National Committee headquarters Tuesday afternoon.

Comey disclosed the new evidence in a letter to congressional leaders 11 days before the election. He told those leaders Sunday that the new materials did not change the FBI’s conclusion that Clinton had committed no crimes.

But Clinton’s lead in published polls dipped after the revelation, and because House results are highly correlated to the presidential results, Pelosi said the news had a “definite impact” on the congressional battle.

“This is like a Molotov cocktail thrown into a very explosive arena,” she said.

Pelosi stopped short of calling for Comey’s dismissal or resignation. But she suggested that he wilted under pressure from Republicans.

“If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen,” she said.

Pelosi had suggested in late September that Democrats were on track to pick up at least 20 seats toward the 30 necessary to flip the majority away from Republicans. Now, Democratic strategists say, Democrats are more in line to pick up about a dozen seats.

There is evidence, however, that the presidential race was tightening even before Comey made his disclosure, making it difficult to gauge the impact of his intervention.

Pelosi’s comments Tuesday stand in contrast to her praise of Comey in July, when he testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Clinton’s use of a private email server and recommended against charges. At the time, Pelosi described the FBI director as “a great man” that Americans “are very privileged” to have leading the federal agency, according to Politico.Pelosi: Comey became ‘leading Republican political operative in the country’
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that FBI Director James B. Comey’s decision to reveal possible new evidence in the Hillary Clinton email probe likely cost Democrats seats in the House.

“He became the leading Republican political operative in the country, wittingly or unwittingly,” she told reporters during a brief appearance at Democratic National Committee headquarters Tuesday afternoon.

Comey disclosed the new evidence in a letter to congressional leaders 11 days before the election. He told those leaders Sunday that the new materials did not change the FBI’s conclusion that Clinton had committed no crimes.

But Clinton’s lead in published polls dipped after the revelation, and because House results are highly correlated to the presidential results, Pelosi said the news had a “definite impact” on the congressional battle.

“This is like a Molotov cocktail thrown into a very explosive arena,” she said.

Pelosi stopped short of calling for Comey’s dismissal or resignation. But she suggested that he wilted under pressure from Republicans.

“If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen,” she said.

Pelosi had suggested in late September that Democrats were on track to pick up at least 20 seats toward the 30 necessary to flip the majority away from Republicans. Now, Democratic strategists say, Democrats are more in line to pick up about a dozen seats.

There is evidence, however, that the presidential race was tightening even before Comey made his disclosure, making it difficult to gauge the impact of his intervention.

Pelosi’s comments Tuesday stand in contrast to her praise of Comey in July, when he testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Clinton’s use of a private email server and recommended against charges. At the time, Pelosi described the FBI director as “a great man” that Americans “are very privileged” to have leading the federal agency, according to Politico.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... e-country/


seemslikeadream » Thu Nov 17, 2016 9:50 am wrote:
Lewandowski: FBI’s Clinton probe won Trump election
BY MARK HENSCH - 11/17/16 07:19 AM EST 132


Lewandowski: FBI’s Clinton probe won Trump election

Donald Trump’s former presidential campaign manager says the president-elect won the White House because the FBI renewed its examination of Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

“With eleven days to go, something amazing happened,” Corey Lewandowski said late Wednesday, referring to the final days of the 2016 race, according to The Telegraph.

“The FBI’s director James [Comey] came out on a Friday and he said they may be reopening the investigation into ‘Crooked Hillary’s’ emails,” he added.
"What that did was remind people that there are two different rules in Washington – those of the elites and the privileged, and those for everybody else.”

Lewandowski said the announcement gave Trump the momentum needed to upset Democrat Hillary Clinton on Election Day.

“When Comey moved forward with that investigation…it allowed the campaign a little spring in their step, and for them to redouble their efforts,” he said.

“In those last eleven days, Mr. Trump was exceptionally disciplined. He used a teleprompter, and he did less media. The team used social media like no campaign in history. And then, Donald Trump won the election campaign by the largest majority since [former President] Ronald Reagan in 1984.”

Comey sent Congress a letter 11 days before ballots were cast alerting lawmakers his agency was reevaluating its probe of Clinton’s server. The FBI director then concluded two days before Election Day his bureau would not change its earlier conclusion in July that it would not recommend charges against the former secretary of State.
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/30 ... p-election


seemslikeadream » Mon Nov 07, 2016 8:25 am wrote:In better news for the cause of justice related to Mr. Comey, the D.C. Court of Appeals last week reinstated Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s law license.



The Political Mr. Comey

The FBI director gives Democrats the conclusion they demanded.

Updated Nov. 7, 2016 7:46 a.m. ET

It looks like our contributor, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, was right last week. FBI Director James Comey’s review of newly discovered Hillary Clinton-related emails was never going to change his legal judgment because the FBI and Justice Department handling of the case was never serious in the first place.

The Justice Department never went to a grand jury in the case, which was needed to gather all appropriate evidence and vet the legal charges. Judge Mukasey’s judgment was vindicated on Sunday when Mr. Comey sent a letter to Congress saying that the FBI had reviewed the new emails and “we have not changed our conclusion that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.”

To rehearse Mr. Comey’s actions: In July he publicly exonerates Mrs. Clinton in an extraordinary press event, two weeks before she is to be nominated for President, though that is not his responsibility. He thus liberates Attorney General Loretta Lynch from her decision-making obligations as the nation’s chief prosecuting official. Later we learn Justice cut needless and generous immunity deals with Mrs. Clinton’s advisers.

Then 11 days before Election Day Mr. Comey sends a letter to Congress saying the FBI has found new email evidence. He comes under ferocious Democratic assault for meddling in the final days of the campaign. His boss, President Obama, joins the criticism and says Mrs. Clinton has already been exonerated. Then two days before the election Mr. Comey sends another letter exonerating Mrs. Clinton again. And Washington’s political class wonders why Americans don’t trust government?

It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the main point of Mr. Comey’s many political interventions has always been to protect Mr. Comey’s job and political standing. Certainly Mrs. Clinton will have cause to be grateful to Mr. Comey if she wins on Tuesday. The price to the country is the damage he has done to the reputation of the FBI as an apolitical law-enforcement agency.

In better news for the cause of justice related to Mr. Comey, the D.C. Court of Appeals last week reinstated Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s law license. Readers will recall that as Deputy Attorney General in the Bush Administration, Mr. Comey named his buddy Patrick Fitzgerald as a special prosecutor in connection with the leak of Valerie Plame’s CIA identity. Mr. Comey then stood by as Mr. Fitzgerald pursued Mr. Libby, who was Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, even after he knew that someone else had leaked Ms. Plame’s name.

Mr. Fitzgerald won the conviction based on testimony that a key witness, journalist Judith Miller, has since recanted. The office of the D.C. disciplinary counsel recommended that Mr. Libby’s law license be reinstated in part due to Ms. Miller’s recantation. The hyperpolitical Mr. Comey has left a trail of legal messes wherever he has worked, but at least Mr. Libby can earn a living at his chosen profession again.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-politic ... 1478476250

seemslikeadream » Mon Nov 07, 2016 4:20 pm wrote:Well, forget it, Jim. We’re not moving on. America has just witnessed one of the most—if not the most—egregious abuses of power in the service of one man’s ego in its history

Comey will, without doubt, be listed as second only to Hoover as the worst director to ever hold the office because of his willingness to abuse his power.




FBI DIRECTOR JAMES COMEY IS UNFIT FOR PUBLIC SERVICE
BY KURT EICHENWALD ON 11/7/16 AT 8:19 AM


James Comey should not simply be fired as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He must be barred forever from any form of public service.

In the last 10 days, Comey has whipsawed the election for president of the United States. Now we know he did it for no reason. When his agents found information that suggested there were emails on a laptop that might have relevance to the investigation of Hillary Clinton and her email servers, Comey did not wait until he knew even a scintilla of information before announcing it to the world. Reasonably, lots of voters assumed there must be a there there—who could imagine a person with the power of the FBI director would turn the election on its head for no particular reason, on the basis of nothing?

Then, Sunday, Comey handed down another missive from on high: Never mind. His agents had looked through the emails and decided they were piffle. His majesty, the FBI director, has not yet deigned to officially inform his subjects—the American people—whether the emails related to the Clinton case or what they were. (However, people involved in the case tell Newsweek that almost all of them were duplicates of what the bureau already had or were personal.) He just said “nothing to see here” and waived us on our way.

Well, forget it, Jim. We’re not moving on. America has just witnessed one of the most—if not the most—egregious abuses of power in the service of one man’s ego in its history. Joseph McCarthy and A. Mitchell Palmer at least believed they were fighting a Communist threat. Richard Nixon, in Watergate, at least had the motive of retaining power and covering up wrongdoing. But Comey—who I do not believe did this for partisan reasons—has no such motive. This was about him, about preserving his now forever-destroyed reputation, about preening with his self-satisfied standing as a maverick who acts based on what he thinks is right, regardless of others’ opinion. But there is a very thin line between being independent and being reckless. And Comey has demonstrated he does not know the difference.

Before launching into a full Comey tear-down, a few facts must be understood. The FBI is an investigative arm of the Department of Justice. Nothing more, nothing less. An extremely small minority are lawyers, or even have basic legal training. They do not—thank God—decide who gets indicted and who doesn’t. Prosecutors run criminal cases and direct the agents. As many prosecutors have told me over the years, there is almost never an instance where agents who have been investigating a case for months do not recommend for prosecution. Tunnel vision is one reason; the fact that agents rise in the ranks by delivering cases that lead to prosecution is another. That is why prosecutors—and through them, grand juries—make the decision to charge or not. They both serve as a backstop to agents who don’t know the law and have no ability to objectively review their own evidence.

(This is why all this nonsense pushed by the Fox Newses of the world has been so deceptive: Screaming “the agents wanted to indict” is on par with “the fish wants to swim.” More important—if any agents really did say these things—they are unfit for the bureau; they must be found and fired immediately for this separate abuse of power.)

What that means is, if the FBI does not even conclude it has enough evidence to write a memo recommending prosecution to the Justice Department, there is simply nothing there. Assuming someone committed a crime when the FBI concludes the evidence obtained in the investigation is not worth turning over to prosecutors is like assuming it must be raining when the skies are clear.

The FBI is never supposed to comment on ongoing investigations and, except in exceptional circumstances, never disclose whether it has or has not recommended prosecution. Instead, on indictment, prosecutors stand up at a press conference, announce the charges, then thank the agents and offices of the FBI who conducted the investigation. If the bureau does not develop enough evidence to merit even a recommendation for prosecution, in those exceptional circumstances where it says anything, those are the words officials use: We have not developed evidence that merits a recommendation for prosecution.

In the last few months, unfortunately, Comey has demonstrated he understands none of this. He has broken these rules time and again, leaving himself in the position where he decided he had to break them a couple of more times. He has acted with a lack of accountability that has not been seen since J. Edgar Hoover held the post. It is unforgiveable.

Comey came into the job as FBI director having been a federal prosecutor and the deputy attorney general in the George W. Bush administration. As anyone who has met him knows, he prizes his reputation for integrity and as one who rises above politics. In fact, he prizes it a little too much. And that is what even his allies in government are saying led to his disastrous decisions in recent months. Like Icarus, driven by hubris, he chose to fly too close to the sun and now has fallen into a sea of near-universal public contempt.

The signs of Comey’s coming downfall showed up quickly. In fact, the event that led to his golden reputation as a man of integrity, when viewed through in the context of everything Comey has done in his time as FBI director, looks quite different. He was cheered when the public learned that, while in the role of acting attorney general at a time when his boss, John Ashcroft, was in the hospital, he refused to sign a document authorizing the continuation of a warrantless wiretapping program used as part of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism efforts. Lots of drama surrounded the event, with Comey—in his later retelling of the story to Congress—as the hero. But in truth, by behaving as if only he knew the truth of the law, Comey burnished his reputation but changed nothing. A couple of fixes were made to the program, and he signed the authorization later.

Plenty of people in Washington knew of Comey’s self-infatuation and predicted it would lead to the exact kind of problem born of his arrogance that has convulsed the country for more than a week. In fact, shortly after he was nominated for FBI director, the Daily Beast quoted an unidentified Justice Department official saying these frighteningly prescient words: “If past is prologue, something will happen in the context of a legal, policy, or operational disagreement where Jim may get on the high horse and threaten to resign or take some other action unless things go the way he believes they should.” When he wanted to issue the now-famous first letter, the attorney general and everyone else consulted in the Justice Department said it was against policy and advised him not to do it. But Comey ignored everyone.

That’s the way it has been throughout Comey’s tenure at FBI. When the Obama administration adopted a policy of cutting down on mandatory minimum sentences, Comey stepped up to the microphones to declare the president wrong. Such sentences, he proclaimed, are helpful in developing cooperating witnesses. (In fact, there is no evidence to support Comey’s statement—mandatory minimums do nothing to persuade potential witnesses to cooperate. He just said it because he thought it was true.)

That was the same standard he used later in talking what was called the “Ferguson effect,” a term used to describe the idea that subjecting police to greater oversight and scrutiny increases the chance that they will be murdered. Not only is there no evidence supporting the idea, it has been thoroughly disproven. Yet Comey advances the idea as gospel based again on nothing but his personal beliefs. He was even urged to stop at a White House meeting, but as always, Comey felt certain he knew best, and continued spewing this falsehood.

Then came the time when the FBI needed to gain access to an iPhone that belonged to the extremists who committed an attack in San Bernardino, California, in 2015. Comey was told that an administration-wide encryption program was under development that would be harmed if he pushed Apple. He ignored the White House and the Pentagon and, in an action that thwarted the government encryption effort, demanded that Apple be forced to unlock the phone.

Time and again, Comey did what Comey wanted to do—regardless of the advice, regardless of what others thought, regardless of whether his arguments had no evidence supporting them. This all came to a head, though, with the investigation of Clinton’s use of a personal email server.

When the FBI concluded its investigation with the decision not to recommend charges, that was all any professional in the position of FBI director would say. There are many reasons for that—primarily, that is the extent of the bureau’s job. It is not an arbiter of morality or competence. More important, if the bureau goes further, both the powerful and powerless are in no position to argue the facts. A sentence that starts with the words “The FBI says…” is almost sacrosanct because of its history in the last number of decades of self-control.

Comey did none of these things. Instead, in an action that horrified many officials who have worked in Republican and Democratic administrations, Comey held a press conference where he blathered on and on about his personal opinions and presented details—sometimes incorrectly—about the investigation. He consulted with none of his colleagues, not even the attorney general. And while he proclaimed he would not be recommending prosecution, he excoriated Clinton for her use of the private email server—a statement that was totally beyond his role. He later told Congress that no prosecutor could ever make a case against her based on the evidence—words that should have cheered Clinton partisans, but which again were horrific. Comey does not speak for prosecutors. The arrogance reflected in that one statement was astonishing.

Then, Comey went further. He opened up the Clinton investigative files and had them posted online. This act was again unprecedented, unnecessary and unexplained. Put simply, Comey was out of control. He was acting under all his own rules—calling press conferences, absolving Clinton, condemning her, speaking for prosecutors, dumping FBI files online—and seemed to be making them up as he went along.

His recklessness opened him up to even more criticism from Republicans. Had he simply made the usual statement about no referral, there would have been nothing else to review. But with his endless proclamations and document dumps, he opened himself and the FBI for more criticism as people with no training in investigations or law—but plenty of interest in politicizing the FBI—picked through everything he said and every scrap of paper to scream that the only reason Clinton wasn’t indicted was because of politics. So much information had been placed in the public record by Comey that no one in the public could tell what was a manipulation of the facts and what was real.

Of course, despite all the outcry, Comey did not consider the possibility he had made a mistake. In a message to his employees in September, first reported by CNN, Comey tersely proclaimed that Jim Comey had been right about everything, if he did say so himself. “I’m OK if folks have a different view of the investigation (although I struggle to see how they actually could, especially when they didn’t do the investigation), or about the wisdom of announcing it as we did (although even with hindsight I think that was the best course),” Comey wrote.

Then came late October. Agents had been investigating allegation that former Congressman Anthony Weiner sent illicit, sexual text messages to an underage girl in North Carolina. As part of the inquiry, those agents seized a laptop and eventually discovered emails on it potentially related to the Clinton case. (Huma Abedin, a senior Clinton aide, is the estranged wife of Weiner, and it is her emails that were found on his laptop.) About a week after they had obtained the device, the agents told Comey about their find late on Thursday, October 27.

The emails had not been reviewed. No one reached out to either Weiner or Abedin to obtain permission to review them. No one tried to get a warrant. Literally, the bureau knew next to nothing. But still, the day after he was briefed, with no further information, Comey sent his letter announcing the non-development to Congress. The letter was vague and almost incomprehensible, leaving it to the politicians and reporters to fill in the blanks.

With Democrats reeling and Republicans declaring the announcement as proof that Clinton was about to be indicted, calls came from every side of the political spectrum that he provide more information. But once again, Comey stood firm, telling his employees at the FBI that—shock of shocks—he was right and everyone else was wrong. “There is a significant risk of being misunderstood,” Comey told the bureau employees in the communication, explaining why he was so vague in his letter to Congress. “It would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record. At the same time, however, given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression.”

Oh, please. As any fifth grader not suffering under the weight of Comey’s ego could know immediately, saying next to nothing created a tremendously misleading impression. The numbers tell the ugly story. According to the prime political statistics site FiveThirtyEight, Clinton’s probability of victory collapsed in the aftermath of Comey’s letter, falling from 85 percent to 65 percent in just a few days. Polls in Senate races changed. And throughout Comey’s week of silence, millions of people cast their votes. I personally know several people who changed their votes because of Comey’s letter—some to Trump but some to Clinton because they thought Comey was engaged in Hoover-like corruption of the FBI.

A huge swath of the public now thinks the FBI is a completely political organization: A large number of Democrats, because of the original letter followed by a week’s worth of leaks from other agents about other investigations, are convinced that the bureau is manipulating the election for the Republicans and cannot be trusted. Meanwhile, plenty of Republicans are arguing that Comey’s newest findings can’t possibly be true and that he caved to pressure from the Democrats. In other words, no matter what side of the political spectrum anyone is on, they agree that the FBI is political.

It’s not. Unfortunately, though, it is led by a man who finally outsmarted himself with his own arrogance. He has done more damage to the reputation of the FBI than any director since the Nixon administration. Comey will, without doubt, be listed as second only to Hoover as the worst director to ever hold the office because of his willingness to abuse his power.

Fixing the damage Comey inflicted on the FBI will take a long time. So long as a man is in charge who thinks he’s always right and cares more his personal reputation than his duty, the repairs cannot begin. Comey must be fired. But let’s wait until November 9
http://www.newsweek.com/fbi-director-ja ... ice-517815



FBI agents, lawmakers hammer Comey over Clinton emails inquiry

By Julia Edwards | WASHINGTON
FBI Director James Comey was under attack from some of his own agents and members of Congress on Monday over his handling of an inquiry into Hillary Clinton's emails, but the White House was remaining supportive, for now.

In stunning fashion, Comey has injected the Federal Bureau of Investigation, meant to be politically neutral, into the thick of the 2016 U.S. presidential race, making a series of announcements on the inquiry.

The latest was on Sunday, when he said the FBI stood by a July decision not to recommend criminal charges against the Democratic presidential candidate. Sunday's announcement came days after Comey disclosed the FBI was examining a trove of newly discovered emails.

With the election coming on Tuesday, Comey's statements and the FBI's overall handling of the emails controversy has drawn fire from congressional Democrats, who criticized the agency for clouding Clinton's campaign so close to the election, while Republicans questioned why the new inquiry ended so quickly.

FBI "field agents have felt the derivative impact of the criticism fired at Director Comey as a result of the Clinton email scandal," said Jon Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association Foundation, which represents more than 3,500 FBI agents.

He said some agents disapprove of Comey's handling of the investigation and think he should resign, while others support him, but do not appreciate being in a political crossfire.

A spokesman for the FBI Agents Association said the more than 13,000 active and former special agents it represents have become the victims of “unwarranted attacks” on their integrity.

"Implications that agents do not respect the confidentiality of those investigations is simply false," said the association’s president Thomas O’Connor.

Comey has so far kept the support of President Barack Obama, who has the power to fire the FBI director. "The president views Director Comey as a man of integrity, a man of principle," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters in a briefing on Monday. "The president's views of him have not changed ... he continues to have confidence in his ability to run the FBI."

The White House has said it will not criticize or defend Comey over his handling of the Clinton email investigation.

Charles Schumer, a close Clinton ally and expected Senate majority leader should Democrats regain control of the chamber, said on Oct. 30 that he was “appalled at what Director Comey did” and owes an explanation to Clinton and the American people.

FBI directors are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to serve 10 years unless they are fired or resign.

Only one FBI director in recent history has been fired. William Sessions was fired by President Bill Clinton in 1993 after a report emerged about Sessions using an FBI airplane for personal travel and other unethical practices.

FBI Director Louis Freeh resigned in 2001, two years short of the end of his term, amid a scandal over Robert Hanssen, a senior FBI official charged with spying for the Soviet Union and Russia undetected for 15 years.

If Clinton wins the election, as polls suggest, she would also be in the position to fire Comey, but might not do so to avoid being portrayed as seeking political retaliation.

"I don’t know what her view will be, but ... you just cannot have an FBI director in place who believes he is accountable to neither the rules nor the attorney general,” said Matthew Miller, former chief spokesman for the Obama Justice Department.

Under the federal Hatch Act, Justice Department employees may not engage in partisan political activity while on duty.

On Sunday, Democratic Representative Adam Schiff said Comey's "original letter" telling Congress that Clinton's emails were once again under investigation "should never have been sent so close to an election."

Republican Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley called on the Justice Department's inspector general on Nov. 2 to examine the FBI's investigation.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-j ... ews&rpc=69
[/quote]
seemslikeadream » Fri Nov 04, 2016 7:14 pm wrote:
Exclusive: The Democratic National Committee Has Told the FBI It Found Evidence Its HQ Was Bugged
Back to Watergate?


DAVID CORNNOV. 4, 2016 4:48 PM


DNC: Olivier Douliery/Abaca/Sipa via AP; FBI agent: Steven K. Doi/Zumapress
In an episode reminiscent of Watergate, the Democratic Party recently informed the FBI that it had collected evidence suggesting its Washington headquarters had been bugged, according to two Democratic National Committee officials who asked not to be named.

In September, according to these sources, the DNC hired a firm to conduct an electronic sweep of its offices. After Russian hackers had penetrated its email system and those of other Democratic targets, DNC officials believed it was prudent to scrutinize their offices. This examination found nothing unusual.

In late October, after conservative activist James O'Keefe released a new set of hidden-camera videos targeting Democrats, interim party chairwoman Donna Brazile ordered up another sweep. There was a concern that Republican foes might have infiltrated the DNC offices, where volunteers were reporting to work on phone banks and other election activities. (For some of their actions, O'Keefe and his crew have used people posing as volunteers to gain access to Democratic outfits.)

The second sweep, according to the Democratic officials, found a radio signal near the chairman's office that indicated there might be a listening device outside the office. "We were told that this was something that could pick up calls from cellphones," a DNC official says. "The guys who did the sweep said it was a strong indication." No device was recovered. No possible culprits were identified.

The DNC sent a report with the technical details to the FBI, according to the DNC officials. "We believe it's been given by the bureau to another agency with three letters to examine," the DNC official says. "We're not supposed to talk about it."

A Democratic consultant who has done work for the DNC, who asked not to be identified, says he was recently informed about the suspected bugging.

The DNC officials will not say what countermeasures were subsequently taken. "As a general policy, we don't talk about such efforts," the other DNC official says. But this official adds, "You have to take all of this incredibly seriously." The first DNC official notes, "We are the oldest political party in this country, and we are under constant attack from Russia and/or maybe others."

Adam Hodge, a spokesman for the DNC, says, "The DNC is not going to comment on stories about its security. In all security matters, we cooperate fully with the appropriate law enforcement agencies and take all necessary steps to protect the committee and the safety and security of our staff."

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... een-bugged

seemslikeadream » Fri Nov 04, 2016 8:23 pm wrote:Cummings and Conyers Request Investigation of FBI Leaks to Trump Campaign

Nov 4, 2016 Press Release

Washington, D.C. (Nov. 4, 2016)—Today, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings and Rep. John Conyers, Jr., the Ranking Members of the House Committees on Oversight and Government Reform and Judiciary, sent a letter calling on the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct an immediate investigation to determine the source of multiple unauthorized—and often inaccurate—leaks from within the FBI to benefit the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. The full letter is set forth below.

November 4, 2016

The Honorable Michael E. Horowitz

Inspector General

U.S. Department of Justice

950 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W., Suite 4706

Washington, D.C. 20530-0001

Dear Mr. Horowitz:

This morning, Rudy Giuliani—one of Donald Trump’s closest and most vocal campaign advisers—appeared on national television and confirmed that he had obtained leaked information about the FBI’s review of Clinton-related emails several days before FBI Director James Comey sent his letter to Congress last Friday about this matter.

In fact, Mr. Giuliani went even further and bragged about the information he had obtained, stating: “Did I hear about it? You’re darn right I heard about it.”

Already, Director Comey’s letter from last Friday had broken with longstanding precedent by confirming publicly that the FBI was in the process of taking investigative steps relating to newly-discovered emails, despite the fact that Director Comey had not yet even seen these emails or determined whether they were “significant.”

It is absolutely unacceptable for the FBI to leak unsubstantiated—and in some cases false—information about one presidential candidate to benefit the other candidate. Leaking this information to former FBI officials as a conduit to the Trump campaign is equally intolerable.

For example, on Wednesday, Fox News anchor Bret Baier claimed on national television—based on multiple leaks—that the FBI was “actively and aggressively” investigating the Clinton Foundation and that an indictment was “likely.” This morning, however, Mr. Baier was forced to correct his report, admitting that it was “a mistake.”

These unauthorized and inaccurate leaks from within the FBI, particularly so close to a presidential election, are unprecedented. For these reasons, we are calling on your office to conduct a thorough investigation to identify the sources of these and other leaks from the FBI and to recommend appropriate action.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.



Sincerely,



Elijah E. Cummings John Conyers, Jr.

Ranking Member Ranking Member

House Committee on Oversight and House Committee on the Judiciary

Government Reform



cc: The Honorable Loretta Lynch, Attorney General of the United States

The Honorable James Comey, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Honorable Jason Chaffetz, Chairman, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, Chairman, House Committee on the Judiciary



Rep. Conyers seeks probe in leaks of FBI’s Clinton case
Detroit News staff and wire reports 7:50 p.m. EDT November 4, 2016
A Detroit lawmaker and the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform are asking the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate how details from the renewed FBI examination into presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s email server allegedly reached the campaign of her GOP rival, Donald Trump.

In a letter Friday, U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Detroit, who is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and fellow Democrat Rep. Elijah E. Cummings asked DOJ Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz to immediately “determine the source of multiple unauthorized — and often inaccurate — leaks from within the FBI to benefit the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.”

The statement referenced remarks from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — whom Conyers and Cummings called “one of Donald Trump’s closest and most vocal campaign advisers” — during a Friday appearance on national television. His comments suggested Guiliani had obtained leaked information about the federal review of Clinton-related emails several days before FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to Congress last week.

Comey has said agents would take steps to review the messages found on a computer seized during an unrelated investigation involving the estranged husband of a Clinton aide.

Anthony Weiner, a disgraced former New York congressman, is being investigated in connection with online communications with a teenage girl. He was separated this year from Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s closest advisers.

Michigan Republicans and Democrats have clashed over the decision to investigate a new batch of emails related to a previously closed probe of Clinton’s private email server while secretary of state.

Conyers and Cummings had both requested full disclosure from the Department of Justice and FBI. In light of the Giuliani remarks, they stressed Friday that Comey’s letter “had broken with longstanding precedent by confirming publicly that the FBI was in the process of taking investigative steps relating to newly-discovered emails, despite the fact that Director Comey had not yet even seen these emails or determined whether they were ‘significant.’ ”

They went on to write: “It is absolutely unacceptable for the FBI to leak unsubstantiated — and in some cases false — information about one presidential candidate to benefit the other candidate. Leaking this information to former FBI officials as a conduit to the Trump campaign is equally intolerable.”
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/p ... /93312062/

seemslikeadream » Sat Nov 05, 2016 8:04 am wrote:
FRIDAY, NOV 4, 2016 06:48 AM CDT
The FBI isn’t indicting Hillary Clinton over the Clinton Foundation, but Fox News wants you to think it is

The Trump campaign has no problem with the false reports, since they're helping him VIDEO
MATTHEW ROZSA


The FBI isn't indicting Hillary Clinton over the Clinton Foundation, but Fox News wants you to think it is
FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016 file photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Miami. Outraged claims of voting fraud are no longer only a regular part of elections in unsteady, young democracies - they’re increasingly being made in established democratic countries by populist politicians who question the fairness of the voting process - and with it the validity of representation by and for the people. At the final debate of the U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump refused to commit to honor the result of the Nov. 8 vote. But he’s not the only example of a politician casting doubt on the fairness of the democratic system in countries where it is the norm. (Credit: AP)
An indictment against Hillary Clinton for her activities with the Clinton Foundation is not likely, despite what Fox News kept telling its viewers on Wednesday and Thursday.

Despite an acknowledgment from Bret Baier — the host who originally reported a false claim that the FBI is preparing to indict the Democratic nominee — that his assertion was made “inartfully,” the story that the Clintons were about to be indicted was picked up by reputable outlets, as well as conservative blogs.

“This reporting has been debunked far and wide, and even by Fox News’ standards, it was shameful for them to air it,” tweeted Brian Fallon, press secretary to Clinton’s campaign.


Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, was pleased with the story’s effect.

“Well, the damage is done to Hillary Clinton. No matter how it’s being termed the voters are hearing it for what it is — a culture of corruption,” Kellyanne Conway told MSNBC’s Brian Williams.



Trump himself has seized on the stories in an attempt to rally his base only a few days before the election.

“It was reported last night that the FBI is conducting a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s pay-for-play corruption,” the Republican presidential nominee told a rally in Jacksonville, Florida, Thursday. “The investigation is described as a high priority. It’s far-reaching and has been going on for more than one year. It was reported that an avalanche of information is coming in. The FBI agents say their investigation is likely to yield an indictment.”

In Selma, North Carolina, later that day, Trump even accused the Justice Department of pressuring the FBI into not releasing information that would be damaging to Clinton.

“She’s protected by the Department of Justice, and what’s going on in our country this has never happened, ever happened before. And the FBI is in there, they’re doing their job and they’re not allowed to be doing their job, what’s going on is a disgrace,” Trump declared.

“Hillary created the server to shield her criminal activity and her corrupt pay-for-play schemes where she sold her office as secretary of state to donors and special interests,” Trump added. “And the FBI has it all. They have it all. They’re not allowed to do anything with it because her protector is the Department of Justice. We’ll have to change the name of the Department of Justice.”

There is no merit whatsoever to the allegations being made by Trump or Fox News. As an ABC News source discovered, although the FBI did investigate the Clinton Foundation and reported its findings in February, prosecutors and senior FBI officials decided there was no evidence of wrongdoing.

http://www.salon.com/2016/11/04/the-fbi ... ink-it-is/


The Post's View
Can anyone control the FBI?


By Editorial Board November 4 at 6:52 PM
IT WAS disruptive enough that James B. Comey, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, injected last-minute uncertainty into the presidential campaign by announcing discovery of additional emails in the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private server. Mr. Comey’s explanation for the disclosure, that he needed to keep Congress informed, was dubious, and the damaging impact, casting a new shadow over Ms. Clinton, was tangible. In the days since, the FBI’s behavior has grown even more questionable. FBI sources have fanned new doubts about Ms. Clinton’s candidacy with inaccurate leaks about an investigation of the Clinton Foundation. This reflects poorly on Mr. Comey’s leadership and on the FBI.

Former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. wrote in The Post the other day that the Justice Department, which includes the FBI, “has a policy of not taking unnecessary action close in time to Election Day that might influence an election’s outcome.” Mr. Holder said rules he approved “are intended to ensure that every investigation proceeds fairly and judiciously; to maintain the public trust in the department’s ability to do its job free of political influence; and to prevent investigations from unfairly or unintentionally casting public suspicion on public officials who have done nothing wrong.”

The FBI, or at least a part it, has blasted right through Mr. Holder’s rules. According to reports Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal and Thursday in The Post, agents based in New York thought they should investigate whether donors to the Clinton family charity were given improper benefits by the State Department when Ms. Clinton was secretary. They were motivated in part by “Clinton Cash,” a book by the conservative author Peter Schweizer that was published in May 2015. According to The Post’s account, when the FBI agents took their desire to probe the foundation to higher-ups, they were advised the evidence was thin. Nothing abnormal about that; prosecutors and officials use their judgment about what cases to pursue all the time.

But this group of New York agents apparently was unsatisfied, and someone decided to prosecute the case through leaks days before the presidential election. Most irresponsible of all was Fox News anchor Bret Baier, who declared an “avalanche” of evidence is “coming every day” and an “expansive” investigation into the foundation was ongoing and would lead “to likely an indictment.” Without any substantiation whatsoever — indictments are returned by grand juries, not by special agents of the FBI — the headlines took off. The false report of an impending indictment was then repeated by Donald Trump. Mr. Baier apologized on Friday for a “mistake,” but the political damage had already been done.

We can only guess at the motives of the FBI agents behind this politicization of law enforcement, but their behavior is sickening. The campaign has been hard enough with the ugly chants of “lock her up.” The last thing we need is to find the fingerprints of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency all over an 11th-hour smear of Ms. Clinton.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html

seemslikeadream » Sat Nov 05, 2016 9:15 am wrote:
Did Rogue FBI Agents Attempt Presidential Election Coup by Reopening the Clinton Email Investigation?
Rudy Giuliani brags about Trump fans inside the FBI.
By Steven Rosenfeld / AlterNet November 4, 2016


Did Trump allies inside the FBI attempt a coup on the eve of the 2016 presidential election?

That is the latest question that comes as new details emerged Friday, following confirmation of FBI agents' illegal leaks about the Hillary Clinton email investigation, and the FBI director’s similarly illegal interference in the election by revealing the FBI wanted to reopen its probe.

On Friday, it became clear that top Trump campaign officials knew the FBI was going to reopen its case before FBI director James Comey made the announcement a week ago in a letter to House Republicans—and that they possibly had a role in forcing the decision. That conclusion and open question arose after parsing a series of televised comments by Rudy Giuliani, the ex-federal prosecutor, ex-New York City mayor and top Trump ally in which Giuliani repeatedly bragged about leaks from disgruntled, Clinton-hating FBI agents.

The sequence of Giuliani's statements and backtracking, augmented by other statements from former top-ranking New York City FBI agents who are Trump allies, suggest a cadre of Hillary-hating agents pushed the Bureau to interfere in the 2016 election in a manner that can only be described as an attempted coup.

Before Comey's announcement that the FBI wanted to examine Clinton emails found on a computer in the sexting scandal surrounding Anthony Wiener, Giuliani told Fox News, “I think he’s [Trump] got a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next few days… I’m talking about some pretty big surprises… We got a couple of things up our sleeve that should turn this around.”


Then last Friday, the day Comey’s letter to Congress surfaced, Giuliani told Fox, “The other rumor that I get is there’s a kind of revolution going on inside the FBI about the original conclusion [by Comey in July that Clinton did not criminally mishandle classified material] being completely unjustified. I know that from former agents. I know that from even a few active agents.”

Then this Tuesday, Giuliani backtracked, telling Fox, “I am real careful not to talk to any on-duty, active FBI agents. I don’t want to put them in a compromising position. But I sure have a lot of friends who are retired FBI agents… I did nothing to get it [the FBI announcement] out. I had no role in it. Did I hear about it? You’re darn right I heard about it, and I cannot even repeat the language that I heard.”

There are several layers to parse here. First, as Miles Gerety, an ex-Connecticut public defender and defense attorney said, no federal law enforcement agent is supposed to talk about ongoing investigations. This means leaks to the Trump campaign breaks their oaths of office and violates Justice Department rules. But that illegality jumps into a wider orbit when FBI personnel intentionally interfere in elections, a violation of the federal Hatch Act.

“The FBI should not be interfering in American elections, period,” Gerety said. “This reminds me of the McCarthy era, when FBI agents followed my dad who was an assistant Secretary of State and wanted him to make certain statements… I thought the FBI was past the Hoover era, of blackmail and interfering… The notion that her emails are so important that they can undermine a federal election. There is no equivalency here.”

The unanswered question is what role did Giuliani and his allies inside the New York City FBI have in pressuring Comey to reopen the email investigation, and in so doing, alert the House Republican leadership. It is no secret that the FBI, like many law enforcement agencies, mirrors Trump’s base—it’s overly white, male and conservative. Add to that the factor that the Weiner investigation was being handled by the bureau’s New York City office, which has deep connections to Giuliani and the Trump campaign, and a volatile brew emerges.

Wayne Barrett, who has been writing investigative articles about New York City for decades, laid out some of the links between the FBI’s New York City office and the Trump campaign in a piece for the Daily Beast. It describes how Giuliani’s law firm not only has ongoing business with agents, but that top former agents, including the city’s bureau chief, have been some of Clinton’s most vocal critics and have assailed Comey for shutting down the email inquiry last July.

“Along with Giuliani’s other connections to New York FBI agents, his former law firm, then called Bracewell Giuliani, has long been general counsel to the FBI Agents Association (FBIAA), which represents 13,000 former and current agents,” Barrett wrote. “Back in August, during a contentious CNN interview about Comey’s July announcement clearing Hillary Clinton of criminal charges, Giuliani advertised his illicit FBI sources, who circumvented bureau guidelines to discuss a case with a public partisan. ‘The decision perplexes me. It perplexes Jim Kallstrom, who worked for him. It perplexes numerous FBI agents who talk to me all the time. And it embarrasses some FBI agents.’”

As Barrett notes, Kallstrom is the former head of the New York FBI office. He was appointed to that job in the 1990s by then-FBI director Louis Freeh, a longtime Giuliani friend. “Kallstrom has, like Giuliani, been on an anti-Comey romp for months, most often on Fox, where he’s called the Clintons a ‘crime family,’” Barrett wrote. “He has been invoking unnamed FBI agents who contact him to complain about Comey’s exoneration of Clinton in one interview after another, positioning himself as an apolitical champion of FBI values.”

This fall, Kallstrom told Fox that “a lot of retired agents and a few on the job… feel like they’ve been stabbed in the back,” and, “I think we’re going to see a lot more of the facts come out in the course of the next few months. That’s my prediction.”

In other words, Kallstrom, like Guiliani, has been talking with FBI agents who have been leaking information about Clinton’s emails. Kallstrom, who endorsed Trump on Fox, calling Clinton a “pathological liar,” created a charity for Marine Corps veterans, Barrett said, which “was the single biggest beneficiary of Trump’s promise to raise millions for veterans when he boycotted the Iowa primary debate. A foundation official said that Trump’s million-dollar donation this May, atop $100,000 he’d given in March, were the biggest individual grants it had ever received. The Trump Foundation had contributed another $230,000 in prior years and Trump won the organization’s top honor at its annual Waldorf Astoria gala in 2015.” Trump “allowed Kallstrom’s organization to hold fundraisers ‘pro bono’” at his now-closed Atlantic City casinos, Barrett added.

“Fox is the pipeline for the fifth column inside the bureau, a battalion that says it’s doing God’s work, chasing justice against those who are obstructing it, while, in fact, it’s doing GOP work, even on the eve of a presidential election,” Barrett concludes.

Giuliani’s own admissions reveal the Trump campaign knew the FBI planned to review more emails tied to Hillary Clinton before a public announcement about the investigation was made last week. But what’s unknown is what role the Trump campaign’s allies in New York City FBI circles had in creating a situation that forced Comey’s hand in reopening the email investigation and publicly announcing it—unlike the bureau’s inquiry into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.

On Friday, Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon, tweeted, “This sure seems like adequate grounds for an Inspector General review.” And the Washington Post reported that Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., and Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-MI, also called on the Inspector General to investigate leaks and referenced Giuliani’s comments.

But that investigation, if it occurs, will be too little, too late. Right now, as Gerety, the retired Connecticut public defender emphasized, it is clear that the FBI is breaking the law by agents talking about ongoing investigations and its director interfering in a presidential election. And as Barrett’s reporting reveals, there are open lines between the New York City bureau and the Trump campaign.

The only question is, did Giuliani push his allies inside the FBI to force Comey’s hand? Or did Hillary-hating agents act on their own to please the Trump campaign and get even with their Washington-based director who shut down their investigation last summer? Either way, it is an appalling scenario that shows the most egregious abuses of power.

http://www.alternet.org/did-rogue-fbi-a ... estigation

seemslikeadream » Sat Nov 05, 2016 9:32 pm wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IeQCDMN6Rc

Kaine: Some in the FBI 'actively working' to support Trump
State College, Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016, in Fort Myers, Fla. (Luis M. Alvarez / AP)
Ed O'Keefe
The Washington Post
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, suggested Saturday that some officials at the FBI are "actively working" to support Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Kaine, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, made the claim during an interview with Fusion, a Miami-based television network targeting bicultural millennials. The comments mark an escalation in the Clinton campaign's response to the FBI's renewed inquiry into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server when she served as secretary of state.

Kaine called the FBI a "leaky sieve" and criticized director James Comey for breaking agency protocol by discussing a politically sensitive case so close to an election. He also dismissed former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani's decision to back off claims that he was given advance notice of the FBI's plans to possibly reopen the Clinton investigation.

"I don't think Giuliani's walk-back is credible," Kaine said. "I think the FBI sadly has become like a leaky sieve."

Giuliani, a prominent Trump supporter, told Fox News in the days before Comey alerted lawmakers to the FBI's renewed inquiry that there would be a "big surprise" coming from the agency. Asked about his claims again on Friday, Giuliani told Fox's "Fox and Friends" program, "you're darn right I heard something." But Giuliani pulled back on Saturday, saying he was only aware of "tremendous anger" from former FBI agents upset with Comey's decision.

Clinton: Trump is 'temperamentally unfit and unqualified to be president'

FBI speeds up its investigation into possible Clinton-related emails after criticism
Comey's decision to alert Congress about his review of the Clinton case "suggests that it's probably more likely explained that (Comey) knew that the FBI is not only a leaky sieve but there were people within the FBI actively working – actively working – to try to help the Trump campaign," Kaine said. "This just absolutely staggering, and it is a massive blow to the integrity of (the FBI)."

Kaine added he thinks that Comey was under pressure to release information to Congress because "subordinates would do it if he didn't."

The FBI decided to review the Clinton case after discovering new emails potentially relevant to the original investigation. Senior FBI officials were informed about the discovery of new emails, obtained in relation to an investigation of former congressman Anthony Weiner, D-New York, at least two weeks before Comey notified Congress, federal officials familiar with the investigation have told The Washington Post.

The officials said that Comey was told that there were new emails before he received a formal briefing and opted to inform lawmakers.

In the wake of Comey's announcement, the Clinton campaign has publicly questioned Comey's motives and fitness to serve - despite praising his leadership of the FBI after he announced in July that the agency wouldn't recommend the email case for prosecution. Clinton herself has raised the issue on the stump, while top aides and surrogates have called Comey's judgment into question.

Kaine was campaigning on Saturday in Florida when he made his remarks to Fusion. He is scheduled to maintain a breakneck pace in the closing hours of the campaign, including an appearance Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation" – where he'll likely be asked to clarify his comments to Fusion – and a visit to Wisconsin. On Monday he will campaign in his home state, as well as Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... story.html


seemslikeadream » Sun Nov 06, 2016 3:38 pm wrote:
Franken expects hearings on FBI conduct
By MADELINE CONWAY 11/06/16 11:00 AM EST

Minnesota Sen. Al Franken on Sunday said he expects that the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on what he described as “troubling” and “rogue” conduct within the FBI.
Franken, a Democrat, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that it was “troubling” that FBI Director James Comey decided to inform congressional leaders that his agency was reviewing new materials related to its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server so close to the November election.
Story Continued Below
But Franken argued that it is “more troubling” that there may be “rogue elements within the FBI” leaking information about the case, which has dominated news cycles to the chagrin of Democrats and the Clinton campaign. The senator didn't directly connect Comey to these elements but did suggest there might be a failure of leadership on his part.
Franken, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said he is “sure” that Comey will come before the panel. “He should answer questions about this, and he should be able to control the FBI,” he said.
Tapper followed up, and Franken confirmed, “I think that there should be hearings. And I’m certain there will be hearings in the Judiciary Committee on this matter.”

By JACK SHAFER
Meanwhile, the political fallout over the Comey announcement continued. On Sunday, a key aide to Hillary Clinton argued that the FBI’s renewed investigation into Clinton’s private emails has not hurt the Democratic presidential nominee.
“It obviously occupied a lot of airspace,” chief Clinton strategist Joel Benenson said on “Fox News Sunday.”


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/f ... z4PFjJxPIk


seemslikeadream » Fri Nov 04, 2016 5:13 pm wrote:Fox’s Bret Baier Apologizes for ‘Mistake’ in Reporting Clinton-FBI Story

Fox News says its report of a possible Clinton indictment is wrong, but Trump keeps citing it

Rudy Giuliani Confirms FBI Insiders Leaked Information To The Trump Campaign

“Did I hear about it? You’re darn right I heard about it.”

11/04/2016 11:49 am ET | Updated 5 minutes ago
Mollie Reilly
Deputy Politics Editor, The Huffington Post
Rudy Giuliani said Friday that he knew the FBI planned to review more emails tied to Hillary Clinton before a public announcement about the investigation last week, confirming that the agency leaked information to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.


The former New York City mayor and Trump surrogate has recently dropped a series of hints that he knew in advance that the FBI planned to look at emails potentially connected to Clinton’s private server. The agency discovered the messages while investigating former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) for allegedly sexting with a minor. (Weiner’s estranged wife, Huma Abedin, is a top aide to Clinton.)

Giuliani has bragged about his close ties to the FBI for months, mentioning in interviews that “outraged FBI agents” have told him they’re frustrated by how the Clinton investigation was handled. And two days before FBI Director James Comey announced that the agency was reviewing the newly uncovered emails, Giuliani teased that Trump’s campaign had “a couple of surprises left.”

“You’ll see, and I think it will be enormously effective,” he said in an interview with Fox News.

All of this has led to suspicion that someone in the FBI is leaking information to Giuliani and the Trump campaign. The Daily Beast’s Wayne Barrett explored those suspicions on Thursday, detailing how Giuliani’s ties to the agency date back to his days as a U.S. attorney in the 1980s.

Giuliani confirmed that notion Friday during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”

“I did nothing to get it out, I had no role in it,” he said. “Did I hear about it? You’re darn right I heard about it, and I can’t even repeat the language that I heard from the former FBI agents.”

Giuliani also said he expected Comey’s announcement to come weeks before it did.

“I had expected this for the last, honestly, to tell you the truth, I thought it was going to be about three or four weeks ago, because way back in July this started, they kept getting stymied looking for subpoenas, looking for records,” he said.

FBI officials knew about the newly discovered emails weeks before Comey’s announcement, according to multiple reports.

Giuliani insisted he had nothing to do with Comey’s decision to announce the probe prior to Election Day ― a move that both Republicans and Democrats have condemned. He also insisted his information comes from “former FBI agents.”

“I’m real careful not to talk to any on-duty, active FBI agents. I don’t want to put them in a compromising position. But I sure have a lot of friends who are retired FBI agents, close, personal friends,” he said. “All I heard were former FBI agents telling me that there’s a revolution going on inside the FBI and it’s now at a boiling point.”

Trump press secretary Hope Hicks did not immediately return a request for comment.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rud ... 0b02c93d6b



Fox’s Bret Baier Apologizes for ‘Mistake’ in Reporting Clinton-FBI Story
by Sam Reisman | 1:43 pm, November 4th, 2016 1479

bret-baier-e1467390403723Fox’s Bret Baier apologized Friday for his damning reports about the FBI’s investigations into Hillary Clinton, namely his reporting that an indictment in the Clinton Foundation probe was in the works and that her server had been breached by foreign intelligence multiple times.

Baier had reported on Wednesday about the FBI’s probes into the Clinton Foundation and her use of a private email server. The Fox anchor cited “sources with intimate knowledge of the FBI investigations.”

“Barring some obstruction in some way, they believe they [the investigations] will continue to likely an indictment,” he told Brit Hume. On Thursday morning he clarified that asserting an imminent “indictment” was “inartfully” phrased.

“That just wasn’t ‘inartful.’ It was a mistake, and for that I’m sorry,” Baier told Fox’s Jon Scott on Friday. “I should have said, ‘They will continue to build their case.’ Indictment obviously is a very loaded word, Jon, especially in this atmosphere.” He clarified that prosecutors, not FBI investigators, make the decision whether or not to pursue an indictment based on the evidence.


Baier had also told Hume that the FBI believed Clinton’s private email server had been hacked by five foreign intelligence agencies.

On Friday Baier clarified that he had spoken to “one source” with “certainty that the server had been hacked by five foreign intelligence agencies.” He confirmed that there were still no “digital fingerprints” to prove such a breach had occurred, but noted that the FBI was operating under the working assumption that the server had been hacked.

“All the time, but especially in a heated election, on a topic this explosive, every word matters. No matter how well sourced,” he said.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/bret-bai ... fbi-story/


Did Rudy Giuliani Abet the Violation of Public Integrity Rules by FBI Agents?


Top Trump ally and former federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani has boasted more than once about being in touch with FBI agents who are hot after Hillary. One example, from Oct. 28, via the Daily Beast:

“The other rumor that I get is that there’s a kind of revolution going on inside the FBI about the original conclusion [not to charge Clinton] being completely unjustified and almost a slap in the face to the FBI’s integrity,” said Giuliani. “I know that from former agents. I know that even from a few active agents.”
The FBI's "Ethics and Integrity Program" guide, meanwhile, stipulates to its employees that they may not use "any influence arising from [their] Federal position ... in concert with any campaign." More broadly, it says, "FBI employees must never use their FBI title or position in any way to advance any particular partisan activity."

Does leaking unflattering information about Hillary Clinton to one of Donald Trump's top advisers count as working in concert with a campaign and/or advancing a partisan activity? It would seem that Rudy Giuliani understands that that might be the case, because when he went on Fox on Friday he denied that he's in touch with current agents. "I'm real careful not to talk to any on-duty, active FBI agents," he claimed, despite having attested at least twice in recent months to having done so.

Two days before Comey's letter was released, by the way, Giuliani told Fox News that the Trump campaign was expecting "a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next few days. I mean, I’m talking about some pretty big surprises. ... We’ve got a couple of things up our sleeve that should turn this thing around."

With this and Chris Christie's top aides being convicted of public corruption felonies, I'm beginning to think Donald Trump might not be as committed to the cause of good government as he says he is!
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/ ... gents.html



Maybe The FBI’s Love For Trump Has Something To Do With How Extremely White And Male It Is

FBI director James Comey has said he “will have failed” if he doesn’t make the agency less white.

11/04/2016 05:21 pm ET
Nick Baumann
Senior Enterprise Editor, The Huffington Post
The FBI is “Trumplandia,” The Guardian’s Spencer Ackerman reported this week following a series of leaks from the law enforcement agency regarding alleged investigations into Hillary Clinton and her family’s foundation. “Deep antipathy to Hillary Clinton exists within the FBI,” he added.

That makes sense. White men are overwhelmingly likely to support Donald Trump, and the FBI is a culturally conservative law enforcement agency that is overwhelmingly white and male.

The FBI has actually gotten whiter in recent years. As of Aug. 1, 83.2 percent of FBI special agents were white, according to internal statistics. That’s a higher percentage than in 2008. More than 80 percent of FBI special agents are men. Last year, FBI director James Comey joked that the fictional FBI depicted on the television show “Quantico” made FBI agents look more “attractive and diverse” than they did real life.

Trump leads Clinton by 26 points among white men, according to YouGov’s polling model. Of course, the white men in the agency aren’t a perfect mirror of the white male vote nationally. FBI special agents need a bachelor’s degree from a four-year college (Trump also leads Clinton by 14 points among college-educated white men, according to YouGov), and their security clearances and desire to work in public service also make them different from the general population.

Trump would win the election with 493 electoral votes if only white men voted, according to a recent analysis by Mother Jones (using YouGov’s data):

There’s another reason to believe FBI agents are more likely than the general population to support Trump: They work in law enforcement. Trump has courted law enforcement and presented himself as the “law and order” candidate. He’s won the endorsement of the union that represents Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, as well as that of the Fraternal Order of Police, the largest police union. And top Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani’s former law firm has deep ties to the FBI Agents Association, which represents the interests of most FBI agents.

“If you think it’s breaking news that the culture of the agents of the FBI is a political conservative culture, that is not news,” says Tim Weiner, who wrote Enemies, the definitive history of the bureau. “The culture of the rank and file of the FBI has been a conservative culture since J. Edgar Hoover was a baby. The FBI was founded in 1908 and it is both a law enforcement agency and now after 9/11 primarily an intelligence agency. It attracts people who served as cops and spies.”

The FBI has a history of discriminating against minority special agents. Hundreds of black FBI employees sued the agency in the early 1990s for racial discrimination. “The higher you go up the agency ladder,” The Marshall Project reported last year, “the less likely you are to encounter” minorities.

The federal government counts anyone whose family origins were in “the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa” as white, so it’s not clear how many people the FBI has hired who have family backgrounds in the Middle East or North Africa. On Sept. 11, 2001, there were only eight FBI agents in the U.S. who spoke Arabic. Five years later, in 2006, the FBI faced criticism when a lawsuit revealed that, despite the agency’s central role in fighting terrorist groups composed largely of Arabic speakers, only a handful of its special agents were fluent in Arabic. There’s no up-to-date, public data on how many special agents are of Arab or Muslim backgrounds or speak Arabic.

Comey has called the increasing whiteness of the bureau a “crisis,” adding that he “will have failed if I don’t change this.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fbi ... c62483f6e4
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: NSA Chief Russia Hacked '16 Election Congress Must Inves

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Dec 10, 2016 12:19 pm

seemslikeadream » Fri Nov 04, 2016 6:46 pm wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZkcreYIQMs


Why the Russians Are Backing Trump’: Maddow Previews Blockbuster Newsweek Story
by Justin Baragona | 9:58 pm, November 3rd, 2016

Image

Just as has been done previously with huge stories broken by Newsweek’s Kurt Eichenwald, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow got a hold of some excerpts of tomorrow’s article and shared them with her viewers.

In this instance, Eichenwald’s report appears to show the real reason why Russia and Vladimir Putin are backing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. The story also has the subtitle that claims Putin wants to weaken NATO.

One of the parts of the story that will come out in tomorrow’s issue is that Russia was apparently freaked out when the GOP candidate attacked the Khan family, believing that these actions would end up with Trump being forced out as the nominee.


According to the article, Russian officials who were hacking to influence the election felt that if Trump were replaced by the Republicans, the next candidate wouldn’t be as good for Russia. Thus, they stopped hacking documents for a while.

Maddow also noted that the article shows U.S. allies in Western Europe are are concerned that they will not be able to trust Trump.

Watch the clip above, via MSNBC.


Alex ‏@aroseblush 60m60 minutes ago
OK. I try to listen & type at the same time. Europe is investigating Trump.

Alex ‏@aroseblush 1h1 hour ago
Alex Retweeted
I told you its complicated what @Maddow is reporting. LOl. What a bizarre & crazy night of news.

Alex ‏@aroseblush 1h1 hour ago
Alex Retweeted Alex
To complicated & involved to explain here. Will publish the article tomorrow. One thing Trump doesn't trust our Intelligence people.Alex added,

Alex ‏@aroseblush 1h1 hour ago
Exclusive Kurt Eichenwald will report in Newsweek tomorrow, Why the Russians are supporting Trump?

Alex @aroseblush
Part of the FBI is Trumpland, and is part of http://Briebart.com . They are trying to throw the election to Trump with their leaks.

Alex ‏@aroseblush 2h2 hours ago
http://Briebart.com is owned by this zillionaire Robert Mercer

Alex ‏@aroseblush 2h2 hours ago
FBI used a book put out by Briebart(campaign chair for Trump) which is a witch hunt against Hillay to convince Comey to change mind

‘INTEGRITY QUESTIONED’
Meet Donald Trump’s Top FBI Fanboy
Trump supporters with strong ties to the agency kept talking about surprises and leaks to come—and come they did.

WAYNE BARRETT

11.03.16 12:03 AM ET
Two days before FBI director James Comey rocked the world last week, Rudy Giuliani was on Fox, where he volunteered, un-prodded by any question: “I think he’s [Donald Trump] got a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next few days. I mean, I’m talking about some pretty big surprises.”
Pressed for specifics, he said: “We’ve got a couple of things up our sleeve that should turn this thing around.”
The man who now leads “lock-her-up” chants at Trump rallies spent decades of his life as a federal prosecutor and then mayor working closely with the FBI, and especially its New York office. One of Giuliani’s security firms employed a former head of the New York FBI office, and other alumni of it. It was agents of that office, probing Anthony Weiner’s alleged sexting of a minor, who pressed Comey to authorize the review of possible Hillary Clinton-related emails on a Weiner device that led to the explosive letter the director wrote Congress.
Hours after Comey’s letter about the renewed probe was leaked on Friday, Giuliani went on a radio show and attributed the director’s surprise action to “the pressure of a group of FBI agents who don’t look at it politically.”
“The other rumor that I get is that there’s a kind of revolution going on inside the FBI about the original conclusion [not to charge Clinton] being completely unjustified and almost a slap in the face to the FBI’s integrity,” said Giuliani. “I know that from former agents. I know that even from a few active agents.”
Along with Giuliani’s other connections to New York FBI agents, his former law firm, then called Bracewell Giuliani, has long been general counsel to the FBI Agents Association (FBIAA), which represents 13,000 former and current agents. The group, born in the New York office in the early ’80s, was headed until Monday by Rey Tariche, an agent still working in that office. Tariche’s resignation letter from the bureau mentioned the Clinton probe, noting that “we find our work—our integrity questioned” because of it, adding “we will not be used for political gains.”
When the FBIAA threw its first G-Man Honors Gala in 2014 in Washington, Giuliani was the keynote speaker and was given a distinguished service award named after him. Giuliani left Bracewell this January and joined Greenberg Traurig, the only other law firm listed as a sponsor of the FBIAA gala. He spoke again at the 2015 gala. The Bracewell firm also acts as the association’s Washington lobbyist and the FBIAA endorsed Republican Congressman Mike Rodgers, rather than Comey, for the FBI post in 2013. Giuliani did not return a Daily Beast message left with his assistant.
Back in August, during a contentious CNN interview about Comey’s July announcement clearing Hillary Clinton of criminal charges, Giuliani advertised his illicit FBI sources, who circumvented bureau guidelines to discuss a case with a public partisan. “The decision perplexes me. It perplexes Jim Kallstrom, who worked for him. It perplexes numerous FBI agents who talk to me all the time. And it embarrasses some FBI agents.”
Kallstrom is the former head of the New York FBI office, installed in that post in the ’90s by then-FBI director Louis Freeh, one of Giuliani’s longtime friends. Kallstrom has, like Giuliani, been on an anti-Comey romp for months, most often on Fox, where he’s called the Clintons as a “crime family.” He has been invoking unnamed FBI agents who contact him to complain about Comey’s exoneration of Clinton in one interview after another, positioning himself as an apolitical champion of FBI values.
Last October, after President Obama told 60 Minutes that the Clinton emails weren’t a national security issue, Megyn Kelly interviewed Kallstrom on Fox. “You know a lot of the agents involved in this investigation,” she said. “How angry must they be tonight?”
“I know some of the agents,” said Kallstrom. “I know some of the supervisors and I know the senior staff. And they’re P.O.’d, I mean no question. This is like someone driving another nail in the coffin of the criminal justice system.”
Kallstrom declared that “if it’s pushed under the rug,” the agents “won’t take that sitting down.” Kelly confirmed: “That’s going to get leaked.”
When Comey cleared Clinton this July, Kallstrom was on Fox again, declaring: “I’ve talked to about 15 different agents today—both on the job and off the job—who are basically worried about the reputation of the agency they love.” The number grew dramatically by Labor Day weekend when Comey released Clinton’s FBI interview and other documents, and Kallstrom told Kelly he was talking to “50 different people in and out of the agency, retired agents,” all of whom he said were “basically disgusted” by Comey’s latest release.
By Sept. 28, Kallstrom said he’d been contacted by hundreds of people, including “a lot of retired agents and a few on the job,” declaring the agents “involved in this thing feel like they’ve been stabbed in the back.” So, he said, “I think we’re going to see a lot more of the facts come out in the course of the next few months. That’s my prediction.”
Kallstrom, whose exchanges with active agents about particular cases are as contrary to FBI policy as Giuliani’s, formally and passionately endorsed Trump this week on Stuart Varney’s Fox Business show, adding that Clinton is a “pathological liar.”

Kallstrom, who served as a Marine before becoming an agent, didn’t mention that a charity he’d founded decades ago and that’s now called the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation, was the single biggest beneficiary of Trump’s promise to raise millions for veterans when he boycotted the Iowa primary debate. A foundation official said that Trump’s million-dollar donation this May, atop $100,000 that he’d given in March, were the biggest individual grants it had ever received. The Trump Foundation had contributed another $230,000 in prior years and Trump won the organization’s top honor at its annual Waldorf Astoria gala in 2015.
The charity, which Kallstrom has chaired without pay since its founding, says it has given away $64 million in scholarships and other aid to veteran families. Rush Limbaugh is a director and has given it enormous exposure on his show and helped it fundraise. Its executive director also worked at the highest levels of New York Governor George Pataki’s Republican administration, and its vice president is also the regional vice president for Trump Hotels in the New York area. The FBI New York office, the charity’s 2015 newsletter noted, then employed 100 former Marines.
Kallstrom, who first worked with Giuliani when the future mayor was a young assistant prosecutor in the early ’70s, was Pataki’s public safety director for five years after the 9/11 attacks and claims he was the one who recommended Comey to Pataki, who got the Bush White House to name him to Giuliani’s old job, U.S. attorney for the Southern District in 2001. Comey had worked in the Southern District for years, hired as a young assistant in 1987 by Freeh, then a top Giuliani deputy.
Kallstrom’s victory tour this weekend also included an appearance on Fox with former Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, another close associate of Pataki’s, who complained on air that she’d been the victim in 2006 when word emerged that the U.S attorney and FBI were probing her in the midst of a race she eventually lost to Andrew Cuomo to become New York Attorney General.
Her concern about the political impact of law enforcement leaks, though, didn’t extend to Democrat Hillary Clinton. “He couldn’t hold on to this any longer,” Kallstrom said of Comey. “Who knows, maybe the locals would’ve done it,” he added, a reference to leaks that elicited glee from Pirro, who echoed: “New York City, that’s my thing!”
In a wide-ranging phone interview on Tuesday with The Daily Beast, Kallstrom first repeated his claim that he gets hundreds and hundreds of calls and emails but stressed they all came from retired agents, adding that he didn’t “want to talk about agents on the job.” Then he acknowledged that he did interact with “active agents.” The agents mostly contacted him before the recent Comey letter because “in all but two cases,” they agreed with what he was saying in his TV appearances, noting that those two exceptions both thought “I should be more supportive of Comey.”
Kallstrom adamantly denied he’d ever said he was in contact with agents “involved” in the Clinton case, insisting that he didn’t even know “the agents’ names.” He asked if this story was “a hit piece,” and contended that it was “offensive” to even suggest that he’d communicated with those agents. When I emailed him two quotes where he made that claim, he responded: “I know agents in the building who used to work for me. I don’t know any agents in the Washington field office involved directly in the investigation.”
Later, though he acknowledged that “the bulk” of the agents on the Weiner case are “in the New York office,” even as he insisted that the “locals” he told Pirro would’ve leaked the renewed probe had not Comey revealed it were not necessarily agents.
He declined to explain why Megyn Kelly stated as a fact that he was in contact with agents “involved” in the case. Asked in a follow up email if he suggested or encouraged any particular actions in his exchanges with active agents, Kallstrom replied: “No.”
“Now, I’m supporting Comey,” Kallstrom told me on the phone, adding that he can’t do or say anything else before election day. “He can’t characterize” what the bureau has from the Weiner emails. “The FBI can’t say anything without having all the information,” Kallstrom contends, just after telling me he supports the FBI director who’s under fire for having done just that.
And, though he predicted in September that more facts about the Clinton case would soon come out, he told me he was “surprised” by the Comey letter. Calling Giuliani a “very good friend,” who he’s seen in TV studios a couple of times recently when they were both doing appearances, Kallstrom said he thought Giuliani was more likely referring to WikiLeaks revelations or videotapes from Project Veritas when he teased big surprises to come.
Kallstrom said he hasn’t spoken to Trump for months, though he did email Trump’s office the day he endorsed him and got a thank you response from an aide. He says he first met Trump when he solicited a donation from him for a Vietnam Vet memorial and that they’d see each other—usually at public events and dinners—over the years, sometimes as often as two or three times a year. Kallstrom said he’d have breakfast at the Plaza with his wife and visit with Trump and his kids, who he got to know at an early age.
When Trump owned casinos in Atlantic City, he allowed Kallstrom’s organization to hold fundraisers “pro bono” there. Trump became a major supporter of New York’s Police Athletic League, run for decades by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, all moves that endeared him to law enforcement officials in jurisdictions where he did business.
Despite his ties to Pataki, Limbaugh, and Trump, Kallstrom says he’s apolitical and has never been involved in a campaign, including Trump’s now. He says he’s a registered independent, and that the people he’s known in the FBI over all his years are as nonpartisan as he is.
But, as quiet as it’s kept, no Democrat has ever been appointed FBI director. Four Democratic presidents, starting with FDR’s selection of J. Edgar Hoover in 1935, have instead picked Republicans, including Obama’s 2013 nomination of Comey, who was confirmed 93 to 1. This tally does not include the seven acting directors, who were named for brief periods over the last 81 years. For the first time in FBI history, the agency is now run by a director who isn’t a Republican, since Comey announced in a congressional hearing this year that though a lifelong Republican, having donated to John McCain and Mitt Romney, he had recently changed his registration (he did not say how he is currently registered).
Six months into his first term in 1993, President Bill Clinton tapped Freeh, a onetime FBI agent who’d worked under Kallstrom, and Freeh spent much of his eight years at the bureau’s helm trying to put Clinton in jail, even dispatching agents to a White House side room to get the president’s DNA during a formal dinner. When Freeh stepped down in 2001, shortly after George Bush replaced Clinton, he went to work for credit-card company MBNA, a giant Republican donor where Kallstrom and another top Freeh FBI appointee were already working. He’s still hunting for the Clintons, though—delivering a speech assailing them at an annual FBI office event in New York last year.
It’s not just the man at the top who’s invariably a Republican. Like most law enforcement agencies, the FBI hierarchy and line staff has a Republican bent—it’s a white, male, usually Catholic, and conservative culture.
Giuliani and Kallstrom claim that the agents revolting against Comey’s handling of Hillary Clinton were doing it because they want apoltical investigations, with all targets treated the same. But neither of them, much less FBI brass or agents, were publicly upset when the worst Justice Department scandal in modern history exploded in 2007, with Karl Rove, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and the Bush White House swamped by allegations that they’d tried to force out nine U.S. attorneys and replace them with “loyal Bushies,” as Gonzales’s chief of staff put it. Democratic officials, candidates and fundraisers were five times as likely to be prosecuted by Bush’s justice than Republicans.
Then at the top of the polls in the 2008 presidential race, Giuliani had to answer questions about it and said that he thought Gonzales should get “the benefit of the doubt,” calling him “a decent man” a few months before he resigned. “We should try to remove on both sides as much of the partisanship as possible,” lectured Giuliani. He recalled that strict rules were put into place while he was at the top levels of justice in the aftermath of Watergate limiting contact between law enforcement and political figures, a particular irony in view of the fact that he talks freely today about engaging in just such conversations on national television, oblivious to the fact that he is now a “political figure.”
Giuliani’s mentor, Michael Mukasey, who succeeded Gonzales as attorney general, appointed a special investigator to examine the U.S. attorney scandal and she concluded that no laws had been broken. It was later reported that four days before Mukasey named this special prosecutor, a federal appeals court vacated seven of eight convictions in a case she supervised in Connecticut, ruling that the team suppressed exculpatory evidence, including the notes of an FBI agent. Kallstrom contends he didn’t say anything about the blatant partisan interference then because he was “never asked to comment,” though he had been a law enforcement consultant for CBS News in about the same time frame. How he became a frequent Fox commentator now is unclear.
It’s clear enough, though, why when Comey sent a note to FBI staff on Friday explaining his decision to inform Congress about the renewed Clinton probe, the scoop about that internal memo went to Fox News. Why Kallstrom gets booked to talked about the Clintons a “crime family.” Why Clinton Cash author Peter Schweitzer, caught in a web of Breitbart and Trump conflicts, would announce on Fox that he was asked in August to sit down with New York office FBI agents investigating the Clinton Foundation (with The New York Times reporting this week that the agents were relying largely on his discredited work when they pitched a fullscale probe).
Fox is the pipeline for the fifth column inside the bureau, a battalion that says it’s doing God’s work, chasing justice against those who are obstructing it, while, in fact, it’s doing GOP work, even on the eve of a presidential election.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... anboy.html


John Mercer..the financier of the book Clinton Cash

FBI used a book put out by Briebart(campaign chair for Trump) which is a witch hunt against Hillay to convince Comey to change mind

Billionaire father and daughter linked to Trump shake-up

By Jonathan Swan - 08/17/16 04:37 PM EDT

Donald Trump’s dramatic staff shake-up on Wednesday revealed the growing influence wielded on his campaign by a Republican megadonor duo.

The fingerprints of Robert Mercer, a New York hedge fund billionaire, and his middle daughter, Rebekah, can be seen all over the new Trump staffing appointments and other decisions being made by the GOP presidential nominee.

The Mercers, who previously put $13.5 million into a super-PAC supporting Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's presidential bid, have recently converted the group into the Defeat Crooked Hillary PAC, targeting Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Robert Mercer has reportedly made a “substantial” additional investment of at least $1 million in the new super-PAC, which has already spent $500,000 on digital ads attacking Clinton in eight battleground states. Additionally, he and particularly Rebekah have become influential figures in Trump World in the past few months.

Rebekah Mercer “lives in a beautiful apartment in one of Trump's buildings on the Upper West Side [of New York City] overlooking the Hudson River,” a source who knows her told The Hill.

A Heritage Foundation trustee and director of the Mercer Family Foundation, Rebekah takes the lead on the details of the Mercers’ political operation, while her father provides the funds.

She’s known as a hands-on operator who won’t open up the Mercer checkbook without strict conditions about which vendors are used and which consultants are hired.

Now loyal to Trump, the Mercers were furious when Cruz didn’t endorse the nominee at the Republican National Convention last month. And because they are among the few megadonors to get fully behind Trump, they now increasingly have his ear.

Stephen Bannon, the Trump campaign’s newly appointed CEO, is “tied at the hip” with Rebekah Mercer, said a source who has worked with the Mercers in their political activities.

The Mercers are united with Bannon in their deep opposition to Clinton. They worked with Bannon and provided funds for the "Clinton Cash" movie, based on the book by Peter Schweizer.

And Trump’s other major appointment Wednesday — his promotion of veteran pollster Kellyanne Conway from senior adviser to campaign manager — also bears the hallmarks of the GOP megadonor family’s influence, according to sources who have worked with the Mercers.

“The Mercers basically own this campaign,” said a source who has worked with Rebekah Mercer in her political activities. “They have installed their people. ... And now they’ve got their data firm in there.”

That assertion is possibly overselling the Mercer’s influence because the GOP nominee is his own man and has strong personal relationships with both Bannon and Conway, a source close to Trump said.

But even this source, who said Trump would not be swayed by any donor, conceded that the Mercers have built significant influence over the campaign in a relatively short time.

Trump’s recent decision to employ the data firm Cambridge Analytica, a company in which Robert Mercer is an investor, is another clear sign of Rebekah Mercer's influence, two sources who have worked with Cambridge said.

“As a donor, this is reflective of how she operates,” one of these sources said of Rebekah Mercer, who has both a dual bachelor's degree and a master's degree from Stanford University.

“She’s very nice and very unassuming ... but she’s also no bullshit. Her style is, 'If you want my money, you have to do things the way I want.'"

Neither Cambridge Analytica, the Trump campaign, nor representatives for the Mercers would comment for this report.

Conway, who also did not respond to a request for comment, led the Cruz-aligned Keep the Promise super-PAC funded by the Mercers and is a trusted political adviser to the family.

Rebekah Mercer has been known to recommend that people she works with travel to Los Angeles to meet with Bannon.

“And it’s not a recommendation; it’s happening. It’s understood that it’s happening. She’ll set up the dinner with Bannon,” said a source who has worked with Mercer.

Bannon, a former Goldman Sachs banker and Navy officer, predated Trump in pushing the populist nationalism that now dominates the GOP nominee’s campaign.

To lead Trump’s campaign, he’s taking temporary leave from running Breitbart News, a pro-Trump news website also funded by the Mercers.

Rebekah Mercer has been known to indicate to people in the public policy world that she can influence Breitbart coverage where needed.

During the Republican convention, Bannon and Breitbart’s Washington political editor, Matt Boyle, were listed as invited guests of Mercer in a private donor suite, according to a document published by Bloomberg Politics. The Hill could not confirm their attendance in the suite.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Mercer spoke to Trump on Saturday evening at a Hamptons fundraiser hosted at the home of New York Jets owner Woody Johnson. She reportedly spoke highly of Bannon, who has long been a confidant of Trump’s.

Little has been written about the Mercers because they avoid the public spotlight, but conservative sources who know the family, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described them as “kind, civic-minded people and consensus-builders.”

“Bekah and her two sisters have a side cookie business,” one of these sources said when asked to give a flavor of Bekah's personal style.

“She will serve these delicious gourmet cookies at her apartment, at conservative fundraisers. ... She sends people on their way with hand-wrapped cookies."

But that source, who has worked with Mercer in some of her other political ventures, said it was a surprise to some people that the Mercers had swung so forcefully behind Trump, given her ideological bent.

“She identifies as a libertarian. At least she always did,” the source said, adding that Mercer was a big supporter of libertarian think tanks like the Goldwater Institute and Cato.

“With Bekah you always had to prove your libertarian racing stripes,” the source added. “This seems really strange.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/29 ... mp-shakeup


Donald Trump Finds an Easy Mark in Urine Mogul Robert Mercer

Jon Schwarz
October 13 2016, 12:30 p.m.
EVEN AS DONALD TRUMP’S campaign has exploded like the Krakatoa volcano in 1883, his primary financial backer, billionaire hedge fund manager Robert Mercer, has never wavered.

In a recent statement Mercer declared, in language reminiscent of an early John Birch pamphlet, that “America is finally fed up and disgusted with its political elite. Trump is channeling this disgust and those among the political elite who quake before the boombox of media blather do not appreciate the apocalyptic choice that America faces on November 8th. We have a country to save and there is only one person who can save it.”

Mercer, the co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies on Long Island, is the most generous conservative donor of this election, contributing more than $20 million so far. Mercer began the cycle as a key supporter of Ted Cruz, creating Keep the Promise I, a Super PAC devoted to electing Cruz, and giving it $13.5 million. But when Cruz dropped out, Mercer changed its name to Make America Number 1, gave it millions more, and set it to work electing Trump. Mercer is also one of the main investors in Breitbart, and his daughter organized the August campaign shakeup that put Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon — both longtime Mercer intimates — in charge.

So why does Mercer feel such allegiance to Trump? Is it Trump’s policies, élan, and extraordinary judgement and poise?

Maybe. But based on Mercer’s past, it’s more likely that it’s that Mercer is an incredibly easy mark. He has a long history of falling for cranks and grifters, and Trump is just the largest.

Mercer is a relative newcomer to big-time Republican politics, but not to writing big checks to people with exciting proposals to change the world.

For instance, in 2005 Mercer’s family foundation sent $60,000 to Art Robinson, an Oregon chemist, so Robinson could expand his huge collection of human urine. Robinson, who believes that a close analysis of urine can “improve our health, our happiness and prosperity, and even the academic performance of our children in school,” has now received a total of $1.4 million from the Mercer foundation. He’s used this to buy urine freezers and mail postcards to puzzled Oregonians asking them to send him their urine, among other things.

Robinson, who also feels public education is America’s “most widespread and devastating form of child abuse and racism,” ran for Congress in 2010 against Democrat Peter DeFazio. Mercer, smitten with Robinson’s vision of low taxes and large-scale urine collection, co-funded a Super PAC that spent $600,000 on ads supporting him.

Mercer also funds the peculiar organization Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, to which Robinson belongs. The group’s other members hold varied beliefs, such as that low doses of radiation are good for you, that HIV does not cause AIDS, and that the U.S. government did not stop the San Bernardino terrorist attacks because it’s “on the other side.”

More recently, Mercer contributed $425,000 to the Super PAC “Black Americans for a Better Future.” The other donors — all of whom appear to be, like Mercer, white — have given only $38,350 combined, making Mercer responsible for 92 percent of the haul. BABF seems to exist only to employ Raynard Jackson, an African-American political consultant in Washington, D.C., who has accused Barack Obama of “relentless pandering to homosexuals.” Given that BABF’s stated goal is to deliver “at least 15% of the black vote” to the GOP presidential nominee this year, it’s fair to say it hasn’t been a rousing success. In the small world of black Republicans, Jackson is viewed as an embarrassment and a conman.

Then we come to Trump, whose portfolios of scams seems as infinite as the stars. Remarkably, Trump has also been involved in urine solicitation — his multilevel marketing scheme The Trump Network asked members to send in a urine sample so they could receive vitamins perfectly tailored to their metabolism. Perhaps it was hearing about the urine angle that ultimately sold Mercer on Trump’s trustworthiness and acumen.

In the end, Mercer’s story seems a little sad. It’s easy to imagine Trump, Bannon, and Conway explaining to him that with just a little more of his money they can win the election by proving that two wrongs in fact do make a right. “We’ve got trouble, right here in New York City,” they must tell him on conference calls. “And that starts with T, and that rhymes with C, and that stands for Clenis.”

Then everybody hangs up and Mercer goes back to playing with his $2 million model train, overjoyed that he’s finally got some nice, smart friends who really like him.

https://theintercept.com/2016/10/13/don ... rt-mercer/



As Trump Ally, Rudy Giuliani Boasts of Ties to F.B.I.
About New York
By JIM DWYER NOV. 3, 2016


Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, seemed in a giddy mood when he was interviewed last week on the “Fox & Friends” morning television show.

Tireless if often wildly inaccurate in his attacks on Hillary Clinton’s ethics, health and work as a United States senator and as secretary of state, Mr. Giuliani has been spending every minute in the public spotlight as a surrogate for Donald J. Trump.

His most remarkable claim is that he has a pipeline into the Federal Bureau of Investigation and that agents tell him they are “outraged” that they have not been able to bring Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, to justice.

But his television appearance on Tuesday of last week appeared, at the time, to be in a softer hue.

Brian Kilmeade, a Fox News host, asked Mr. Giuliani about the presidential campaign during its last two weeks.

“Does Donald Trump plan anything except a series of inspiring rallies?” Mr. Kilmeade asked.

“Yes,” Mr. Giuliani replied.

Another host, Ainsley Earhardt, jumped in.

“What?” she asked.

“Ha-ha-ha,” Mr. Giuliani laughed. “You’ll see.”

Appearing to enjoy his own coy reply, Mr. Giuliani resumed chuckling: “Ha-ha-ha.”

“When will this happen?” Ms. Earhardt asked.

“We got a couple of surprises left,” Mr. Giuliani said, smiling.

This enigmatic reply roused the show’s third host, Steve Doocy.

“October surprises?” he asked.

Mr. Giuliani expanded a bit.

“Well,” he said, “I call them early surprises in the way we’re going to campaign to get our message out, maybe in a little bit of a different way. You’ll see. And I think it’ll be enormously effective. And I do think that all of these revelations about Hillary Clinton finally are beginning to have an impact.”

Three days later, James B. Comey, the director of the F.B.I., said agents were reviewing emails “that appear to be pertinent” to a closed investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s use of a personal email server while secretary of state.

Mr. Comey said he did not know whether the material was significant but felt Congress should know because he had testified at hearings in July about the investigation.

Against the ceaseless droning buzz of the presidential campaign, Mr. Comey’s revelation boomed like a sudden, unexpected crack of thunder — though a poll by The New York Times and CBS News released on Thursday found that it had not changed people’s minds.

Did Mr. Giuliani have an inside track on the F.B.I.’s discovery of emails, apparently on a laptop belonging to Anthony D. Weiner, the estranged husband of the Clinton aide Huma Abedin?

Oh, not at all, said Jason Miller, a spokesman for the Trump campaign.

“Rudy was just having fun,” Mr. Miller said. “To keep the other side on their toes.”

Since August, Mr. Giuliani has publicly claimed that F.B.I. agents were telling him that Mrs. Clinton should have been criminally charged for the email server.

“It perplexes numerous F.B.I. agents who talk to me all the time,” Mr. Giuliani said during an August interview with Chris Cuomo on CNN. “And it embarrasses some F.B.I. agents.”

Mr. Giuliani has not named the embarrassed or perplexed agents, and as Wayne Barrett noted in The Daily Beast on Thursday, it is a violation of F.B.I. policy for agents to share investigative information.

This week, Mr. Giuliani opened a new front. He attributed what might be seen as a commonplace difference of opinion about law and evidence to rampant corruption at the highest levels of the Justice Department, specifically naming the attorney general, Loretta E. Lynch, who began her career as a prosecutor in the New York area in 1990 and has obtained convictions of politically corrupt Republicans and Democrats.

Mr. Giuliani provided no substantiation of this grave accusation, but instead staked his claims on information that he said came from unnamed law enforcement sources.

“You have outraged F.B.I. agents that talk to me,” Mr. Giuliani said in an interview on Wednesday with Megyn Kelly on Fox News. “They are outraged at the injustice. They are outraged at being turned down by the Justice Department to open a grand jury. They are convinced that Loretta Lynch has corrupted the Justice Department.”

Asked about Mr. Giuliani’s statements, Mr. Miller said that, in fact, the former mayor had not been speaking with any active F.B.I. agents. “He has only had conversations with retired F.B.I. agents who no longer work inside the building,” Mr. Miller said.

So Mr. Giuliani was apparently basing his charges on second- or thirdhand information when he declared, “This is worse than Watergate.”

A bit much? Maybe. But he is giving Joseph McCarthy a run for his money.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/nyreg ... e-fbi.html


FBI fear of leaks drove decision on emails linked to Clinton: sources

By Mark Hosenball | WASHINGTON
FBI Director James Comey was driven in part by a fear of leaks from within his agency when he decided to tell Congress the FBI was investigating newly discovered emails related to Hillary Clinton, law enforcement sources said on Thursday.

The examination of the email traffic is now being carried out under the tightest secrecy by a team at Federal Bureau of Investigations headquarters in Washington, the sources said, requesting anonymity because of the inquiry's sensitivity.

Several sources said it was unclear whether the FBI would make any further public disclosures about its latest review before Tuesday's presidential and congressional elections. Two sources said such disclosures were unlikely.

Another source, recently in contact with top investigators, said: "It depends on how it goes and what they find." The source said that, as of Thursday, "nobody really knows" whether the FBI will have anything further to say before the election.

Dropping like a bombshell on the U.S. presidential campaign, Comey's disclosure last Friday in a letter to senior lawmakers just days before the elections raised questions about his motives and drew criticism from some over his timing.

Comey disclosed that the FBI was looking at emails as part of a probe into Clinton's use of a private email system while secretary of state, without describing the emails' content or how long the inquiry might take. The FBI normally does not comment on ongoing inquiries.

The latest emails examination was moving forward "expeditiously," said one source close to the review.

The new emails turned up as FBI investigators were examining electronic devices used by former Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner in connection with an alleged "sexting" scandal. Weiner's estranged wife, Huma Abedin, is a Clinton confidante.

Two law enforcement sources familiar with the FBI's New York Field Office, which initially discovered the emails, said a faction of investigators based in the office is known to be hostile to Hillary Clinton. A spokeswoman for the FBI's New York office said she had no knowledge about this.

Democratic Party sources said such a faction was likely responsible for a recent surge in media leaks on alleged details of an ongoing FBI investigation of the Clinton Foundation.

ALSO IN POLITICS

FBI examining fake documents targeting Clinton campaign: sources
Trump gains ground on Clinton: Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation
The FBI has made preliminary inquiries into Clinton Foundation activities and alleged contacts between Trump and associates with parties in Russia, according to law enforcement sources. But these inquiries were shifted into low gear weeks ago because the FBI wanted to avoid any impact on the election.

The FBI previously had spent about a year investigating Clinton's use of the unauthorized server at her home in Chappaqua, New York, instead of the State Department system after classified government secrets were found in some of her emails.

Comey had said in July that while there was "evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case."

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-e ... SKBN12Y2QD




HAS THE F.B.I. GONE FULL BREITBART?
New reports reveal how the F.B.I. relied on an infamous Breitbart source as the basis for its investigation into the Clinton Foundation—and that agents see Clinton as “the antichrist personified.”
BY ABIGAIL TRACY NOVEMBER 3, 2016 12:48 PM


Throughout her campaign, Hillary Clinton has battled accusations of fostering a “pay for play” culture at the State Department, giving undue access to major Clinton Foundation donors. So far, Republicans have failed to find a smoking gun, but the narrative has served its purpose: tarnishing the public perception of the Democratic nominee and her family’s namesake charity. For this, no one deserves more credit than Peter Schweizer, Breitbart editor-at-large and the author of Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. The controversial, mostly discredited book has been held up by many as irrefutable proof of wrongdoing, or at least common venality, by the Clintons. It also found plenty of eager readers within the Federal Bureau of Investigation, The Wall Street Journal and New York Times report, galvanizing a number of F.B.I. agents to launch an investigation into the Clinton Foundation, based mostly on assertions made by Schweizer in the book.

On Thursday, the Journal reported that last summer, shortly after Clinton Cash was published, a number of F.B.I. agents began investigating claims made against the Clinton Foundation in the book, ultimately prompting an internal battle between the agents and F.B.I. and Justice Department officials. The agents secretly recorded conversations with two informants—both of whom were involved in separate public-corruption investigations—about the Clinton Foundation, and believed that they had enough evidence to build a case. Senior officials in the F.B.I. and the Justice Department, however, were skeptical of the evidence and the primary source, Schweizer’s book. Public-integrity prosecutors reportedly “weren’t impressed” and “thought the talk was hearsay and a weak basis to warrant aggressive tactics, like presenting evidence to a grand jury, because the person who was secretly recorded wasn’t inside the Clinton Foundation,” according to the Journal’s report.

The argument is certainly a compelling one. Even Schweizer—whom the Journal reports was interviewed on several occasions by the F.B.I. agents interested in the Clinton Foundation—has conceded that he does not have any “direct evidence” to prove that the Clintons have done anything beyond the pale. During an interview with ABC’s This Week in April 2015, the author said, “The smoking gun is the pattern of behavior,” and when pressed by host George Stephanopoulos, added, “It’s not up to an author to prove the crime.” Schweizer is also hardly without his own agenda. At Breitbart, Schweizer worked under former executive Stephen Bannon, now the campaign C.E.O. for Donald Trump. He is also the president of the Government Accountability Institute, a nonprofit organization co-founded by Bannon that seeks to build criminal cases against political figures. The institute helped publish Clinton Cash, and Bannon co-wrote and produced a film based on the book.

CLINTON IS “THE ANTICHRIST PERSONIFIED TO A LARGE SWATH OF FBI PERSONNEL.”

Despite a questionable source and orders from the Justice Department and senior F.B.I. officials to “stand down,” F.B.I. agents reportedly continued to investigate the Clinton Foundation. The Journal reports that the dispute reached a fever pitch on August 12, when a Justice Department official called the deputy director of the F.B.I., Andrew McCabe, to complain about the agents’ continued inquiry, prompting him to ask, “Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?” to which the official replied, “Of course not.” The F.B.I. agents, meanwhile, were reportedly furious that leadership seemed to be trying to rein them in. As the Times reports, senior F.B.I. officials originally agreed with the Justice Department to wait until after the election to decide how to proceed against the Clintons. Now, with F.B.I. director James Comey’s decision to publicize the investigation into Clinton’s e-mail server—and the subsequent explosion of leaks and counter-leaks emanating from the agency—the infighting and partisan politics within the bureau are open for all the world to see.

The implications of an increasingly partisan F.B.I. are deeply troublesome. If Clinton becomes president, the bureau will likely become the primary tool of Republicans seeking to investigate her. The word “impeachment” is already on the lips of several lawmakers eager to resurrect the scandal-driven Clinton mania of the late 1990s. And if Trump becomes president, he may find in the bureau an army of sympathetic law enforcement officers ready to assist his political agenda—or vendetta, as the case may be. During interviews with The Guardian, published Thursday, a number of F.B.I. agents described an intensely anti-Clinton atmosphere at the F.B.I., with one characterizing it as “Trumpland.” Clinton, the agent said, is seen as “the antichrist personified” to many people within the bureau, and “the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump.”
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/11/ ... -breitbart


THURSDAY, NOV 3, 2016 03:58 AM CDT
FBI takes a page from Breitbart: Far-right “Clinton Cash” book used in Foundation investigation
The New York Times report on the FBI's Clinton Foundation investigation reveals a pretty sketchy information source
GARY LEGUM

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has gone full Breitbart.

OK, not really. But this nugget from a New York Times story on how the bureau kept two investigations under wraps this summer so as not to appear to be meddling in the presidential campaign could lead you to wonder.

In August . . . the F.B.I. grappled with whether to issue subpoenas in the Clinton Foundation case, which . . . was in its preliminary stages. The investigation, based in New York, had not developed much evidence and was based mostly on information that had surfaced in news stories and the book “Clinton Cash,” according to several law enforcement officials briefed on the case.

Oh, neat, “Clinton Cash,” the partisan hit job published last year by Breitbart’s editor-at-large, Peter Schweizer, and later adapted into a documentary that was executive produced by former Breitbart chairman and current Trump campaign CEO Stephen Bannon. Next the FBI will tell us that Roger Stone was the special agent in charge of the investigation.

If you have forgotten about “Clinton Cash,” Digby laid out a nice case against it and Schweizer. The short version is that the book was one in a long, long line of thinly sourced tales about the Clintons that have made millions of dollars for various right-wing writers and publishing houses since the early 1990s. For that matter, these tales sold a lot of copies of the Times as well, when it went all in chasing Whitewater stories early in Bill Clinton’s presidency.

“Clinton Cash,” published just as Hillary Clinton was announcing her own campaign for the presidency, is an obvious effort to cash in early to what will likely be four to eight years’ worth of salacious and worthless investigations of her upcoming administration. It immediately ran into the same problem that dozens of anti-Clinton books have encountered over the years: It contained more bullshit than a waste pond on a cattle ranch. The publisher had to make revisions to the book’s later editions. Schweizer was forced to admit in both interviews and in the conclusion of his book that he had not quite made the case he was trying to present.

Senior FBI and Justice Department officials came to the same conclusion, much to the apparent dissatisfaction of some agents, as the Times reported:

In meetings, the Justice Department and senior F.B.I. officials agreed that making the Clinton Foundation investigation public could influence the presidential race and suggest they were favoring Mr. Trump. . . . They agreed to keep the case open but wait until after the election to determine their next steps. The move infuriated some agents, who thought that the F.B.I.’s leaders were reining them in because of politics.

Or possibly the agents were being reined in because they were being snookered by the right-wing noise machine. The right has been doing this for 25 years — trying to turn the nation’s criminal investigatory apparatus into an arm of the Republican Party for the sole purpose of destroying the Clintons.

And if it can’t get the GOP what it wants? Just this week Rep. Elijah Cummings, ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, mentioned the pressure that Republicans on the committee have been putting on the FBI to turn up something — anything — on Hillary Clinton regarding her private email server and suggested the GOP is going to start investigating the bureau and its director, James Comey, over the agency’s failure.

This latest blowup is simply the newest chapter in better than two decades of Republicans co-opting the FBI and other investigative agencies in service of chasing whatever dark Clintonian shadows they can conjure from the fever swamps of right-wing media and websites. No charge is too spurious or absurd, which is how the nation wound up with the specter in the 1990s of a Republican congressman shooting cantaloupes in his backyard to “prove” that Vince Foster could not have committed suicide.

It is not new, of course, for right-wing demagogues to use the FBI to chase down false and inflammatory garbage. But even with its history, one of the ways the bureau maintains legitimacy as an institution is by giving the appearance of a nonpartisan actor. If its agents are so determined to base investigations on right-wing con jobs that their bosses do have to rein them in, then it will lose whatever moral authority it wants to claim.
http://www.salon.com/2016/11/03/fbi-tak ... stigation/



Fox’s Bret Baier Walks Back Flawed Reporting About “Likely” Clinton Indictment
Blog ››› 6 hours 55 min ago ››› MEDIA MATTERS STAFF

Fox News’ Bret Baier walked back his November 2 claim, which was based on two unnamed sources, that FBI investigations relating to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will “continue to likely an indictment.” On the November 3 edition of Fox’s Happening Now, Baier described his comments as “inartful,” acknowledging that “that’s not the process.” Baier’s uncritical reporting of anonymous, unvetted sources has been parroted by a stream of Fox hosts and correspondents, as well as right-wing blogs.

The Daily Beast has reported on a pipeline between conservative FBI agents (both active and retired) -- angered by FBI Director James Comey’s conclusion in July that there was insufficient evidence to recommend any indictment in the review of Clinton’s use of private email as secretary of state -- and Fox News. According to The Daily Beast, “Trump supporters with strong ties to the agency kept talking about surprises and leaks to come -- and come they did.” From the November 3 edition of Fox News’ Happening Now:


MARTHA MACCALLUM (CO-HOST): The FBI sources that you spoke with suggest that an indictment is likely. That would prove -- go ahead.

BRET BAIER: I want to be clear -- I want to be clear about this, and this was -- came from a Q and A that I did with Brit Hume after my show and after we went through everything. He asked me if, after the election, if Hillary Clinton wins, will this investigation continue, and I said, “yes absolutely.” I pressed the sources again and again what would happen. I got to the end of that and said, “they have a lot of evidence that would, likely lead to an indictment.” But that’s not, that’s inartfully answered. That’s not the process. That’s not how you do it. You have to have a prosecutor. If they don't move forward with a prosecutor with the DOJ, there would be, I'm told, a very public call for an independent prosecutor to move forward. There is confidence in the evidence, but for me to phrase it like I did, of course that got picked up everywhere, but the process is different than that.
https://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/11/0 ... ent/214274


seemslikeadream » Fri Nov 04, 2016 6:47 pm wrote:
seemslikeadream » Fri Nov 04, 2016 6:18 am wrote:
The FBI. Giuliani. Of Course.

It's only downhill from here.

BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
NOV 3, 2016

Since the passing of Mike Royko and with the possible exception of Kevin Cullen at The Boston Globe, there is no reporter who knows an individual city as well as Wayne Barrett knows New York. Years ago, when he was writing for The Village Voice and I was starting out at The Boston Phoenix, Barrett was one of the people I read to learn the difference between the alternative press and everything else. He is steeped in the political history of modern New York, particularly the h0istory of the last quarter of the 20th Century and the various ambulatory relics who are still wandering through our politics here in the first quarter of the 21st.

On Thursday, in The Daily Beast, Barrett came as close as anyone has in explaining the Byzantine internal politics of the FBI as regards the presidential campaign. It involves Rudy Giuliani, his pals in the FBI from his days as a U.S. Attorney, and his current role as security jefe for El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago.

Hours after Comey's letter about the renewed probe was leaked on Friday, Giuliani went on a radio show and attributed the director's surprise action to "the pressure of a group of FBI agents who don't look at it politically." "The other rumor that I get is that there's a kind of revolution going on inside the FBI about the original conclusion [not to charge Clinton] being completely unjustified and almost a slap in the face to the FBI's integrity," said Giuliani. "I know that from former agents. I know that even from a few active agents." Along with Giuliani's other connections to New York FBI agents, his former law firm, then called Bracewell Giuliani, has long been general counsel to the FBI Agents Association (FBIAA), which represents 13,000 former and current agents. The group, born in the New York office in the early '80s, was headed until Monday by Rey Tariche, an agent still working in that office. Tariche's resignation letter from the bureau mentioned the Clinton probe, noting that "we find our work—our integrity questioned" because of it, adding "we will not be used for political gains."
Of course not.

Barrett further identified James Kallstrom, who ran the FBI New York office under former director Louis Freeh, a running buddy of Giuliani. As Barrett demonstrates, Kallstrom has been more than vocal in his dissatisfaction with the fact that no Clinton has yet been clapped in irons.

Kallstrom has, like Giuliani, been on an anti-Comey romp for months, most often on Fox, where he's called the Clintons as a "crime family." He has been invoking unnamed FBI agents who contact him to complain about Comey's exoneration of Clinton in one interview after another, positioning himself as an apolitical champion of FBI values. Last October, after President Obama told 60 Minutes that the Clinton emails weren't a national security issue, Megyn Kelly interviewed Kallstrom on Fox. "You know a lot of the agents involved in this investigation," she said. "How angry must they be tonight?" "I know some of the agents," said Kallstrom. "I know some of the supervisors and I know the senior staff. And they're P.O.'d, I mean no question. This is like someone driving another nail in the coffin of the criminal justice system." Kallstrom declared that "if it's pushed under the rug," the agents "won't take that sitting down." Kelly confirmed: "That's going to get leaked."
Apparently, ever since news of the Comey letter broke last Friday, Kallstrom has been on a kind of victory lap around the various platforms of the Fox News empire. Meanwhile, Barrett got him on the phone and prompted an energetic tap dance.

Kallstrom adamantly denied he'd ever said he was in contact with agents "involved" in the Clinton case, insisting that he didn't even know "the agents' names." He asked if this story was "a hit piece," and contended that it was "offensive" to even suggest that he'd communicated with those agents. When I emailed him two quotes where he made that claim, he responded: "I know agents in the building who used to work for me. I don't know any agents in the Washington field office involved directly in the investigation." Later, though he acknowledged that "the bulk" of the agents on the Weiner case are "in the New York office," even as he insisted that the "locals" he told Pirro would've leaked the renewed probe had not Comey revealed it were not necessarily agents. He declined to explain why Megyn Kelly stated as a fact that he was in contact with agents "involved" in the case. Asked in a follow up email if he suggested or encouraged any particular actions in his exchanges with active agents, Kallstrom replied: "No."
Politics be damned, it's time for the White House and/or the Attorney General, the nominal superiors of everyone who works for the FBI, to come off the bench and break this scam once and for all. This is now for more than just this election. This is law enforcement trying to force its will of the civil authorities, no different from some backwater sheriff who has compromising photos of the mayor.

And, as far as the immediate future goes, this is going to be a stunning chapter when Dante comes back from the dead and writes the definitive history of this campaign.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/po ... -giuliani/




Maddow Examines How Fox's Debunked Clinton Report Began With FBI Agents Presenting Breitbart Hit Pieces As Evidence

Maddow: The FBI "Actually Used That Breitbart.com, Anti-Hillary Clinton Book As Their Source For Launching A Local FBI Inquiry Into Hillary Clinton"



RACHEL MADDOW (HOST): This week, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal reported that there has been, I guess you'd call it, like, a breakout? There's been a breakout from this otherwise insular little Breitbart.com corner of conservative media and political activism. Those two papers reported that apparently there are Breitbart.com fans, there are Breitbart.com true believers, there are people who buy this stuff who are working inside the New York field office of the FBI. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal were first to report that the New York field office of the FBI used that anti-Hillary Clinton book, and the DVD of the same name, from the Breitbart.com guys, from the Breitbart.com editor and his boss who's now the head of the Donald Trump campaign, the one funded by Donald Trump's biggest donor, right? They actually used that Breitbart.com, anti-Hillary Clinton book as their source for launching a local FBI inquiry into Hillary Clinton. That was their evidence. That was their research. These agents in the New York field office reportedly decided that they needed to look into what Breitbart.com was saying about Hillary Clinton. It all sounds terrible. Sounds totally legit. We should look into that. We're the FBI.

It had previously been reported that New York FBI agents brought this anti-Hillary Clinton Breitbart stuff to a meeting -- excuse me, they had brought this anti-Hillary Clinton stuff to a meeting with career Justice Department prosecutors back in February, and one of the participants in that meeting described it as, quote, "one of the weirdest meetings I have ever been to." But, all we knew before now was that they had brought some stuff about Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation to that meeting. We now know, based on the current reporting, that what the New York agents brought prosecutors at meeting wasn't just generic anti-Hillary Clinton stuff, or Hillary Clinton stuff they had cooked up on their own. No, it was this stuff that had been cooked up at Breitbart. It is the stuff that came from the eco-sexuals having sex with trees website. That is what they had, that is what they brought to career Department of Justice prosecutors, and reportedly the career prosecutors were like, "uhh, where you did you get this? I'm not sure that's a case."

Thanks to lord knows whatever's going on, apparently, inside that New York field office of the FBI, that little adventure, which is now reportedly over, that little adventure of the Breitbart.com readers inside this one FBI field office, that's what's out now in today's news five days before the election. That's what was breathlessly reported on Fox News last night based on FBI sources, breathlessly reported on Fox last night as a whole new Hillary Clinton FBI investigation. One that was definitely going to lead to an indictment.

http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/11/0 ... ces/214289


The FBI Is Self-Destructing at the Worst Possible Moment
And it was a long time coming.


BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
NOV 3, 2016

Of all the astonishing things in an astonishing (and increasingly grim) presidential campaign, the sudden involvement of elements of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the act of ratfcking a candidacy is even more amazing than the fact that there is a vulgar talking yam one step away from running almost the entire federal government. There hasn't been a hotter hot mess in Washington since John Mitchell was running both the Department of Justice and a criminal conspiracy to obstruct same.

On Thursday, for example, thanks to the folks at Think Progress, we discovered that the Feebs are now investigating their own Twitter account.

ThinkProgress has learned that the FBI's Inspection Division will undertake an investigation of the account. Candice Will, Assistant Director for the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility, said she was referring the matter to the FBI's Inspection Division for an "investigation." Upon completion of the investigation, the Office of Professional Responsibility will be referred back to the Office of Professional Responsibility for "adjudication." Federal law and FBI policy prohibit employees from using the power of the department to attempt to influence elections.
Yeah, horses, barns, that whole thing. The important thing to remember is that one portion of the FBI seems to be at war with another portion of the FBI and that almost everybody has a gun.

But, by far, the most astonishing revelation has been that, in launching their probe into the Clinton Foundation, the Feebs in charge relied for source material on Clinton Cash, the meretricious hit job by veteran GOP ratfcker Peter Schweizer, as The New York Times tells us. (Schweizer runs a rightwing chop shop founded by Steve Bannon, the Breitbart slug who's running the Trump campaign.) Keep the Times in mind, because it gets better.

In August, around the same time the decision was made to keep the Manafort investigation at a low simmer, the F.B.I. grappled with whether to issue subpoenas in the Clinton Foundation case, which, like the Manafort matter, was in its preliminary stages. The investigation, based in New York, had not developed much evidence and was based mostly on information that had surfaced in news stories and the book "Clinton Cash," according to several law enforcement officials briefed on the case. The book asserted that foreign entities gave money to former President Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, and in return received favors from the State Department when Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state. Mrs. Clinton has adamantly denied those claims.
If that seems a rather anodyne description of the book, it should, because, more than most publications, the Times has a good reason to soft-pedal the impact of Clinton Cash on federal law enforcement. In April of 2015, in an act that both reminded us all of how the Times was Ken Starr's lapdog regarding the Clintons in the 1990s and presaged the abysmal coverage that followed of Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign, the Times—and, alas, Marty Baron's Washington Post—entered into an unprecedented deal with Schweizer, whose history as an ideological picklock already was well-known.


The Day Political Journalism Died
At the time, we pointed that out to the regulars here in the shebeen, and commented on how that decision was both ethically bizarre and perfectly predictable.

Again, why not just wait until you can order the damn thing on Amazon, rather than climbing under the covers with someone whose CV contains a stint as a hack in the service of Princess Dumbass Of The Northwoods? The answer can be found in the first story that the Times produced under this arrangement.
But Clinton Cash is potentially more unsettling, both because of its focused reporting and because major news organizations including the Times, The Washington Post and Fox News have exclusive agreements with the author to pursue the story lines found in the book.
Got that? The book has credibility because the New York Times cut a deal with the author. Because of this, the author, and his curious resume, are washed in the blood of the Lamb. (It's God's own little joke that Judy Miller's out there shilling for her longform alibi at the same time that her old employers are touting this unique "arrangement.) I will make the Toby Ziegler bet with Carolyn Ryan that her newspaper linked up with this character because her newspaper has had a hard-on for the Clintons from the time it botched the original Whitewater story right up until last Sunday, when its star political columnist went off her meds again.
If you want to find the source point at which the elite political media began mainstreaming dangerous political pollution—which is to say, when the notion of Donald Trump as an actual presidential candidate took shape—you can do worse that pick this particular moment, when the Times decided that we were all just haggling about the price. The pollution has poisoned the election and it appears to have poisoned the FBI into a kind of self-destructive madness.

And there's less than a week left to find the antidote, assuming anyone really wants to look for one.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/po ... ork-times/


The Putin-Trump Axis
A subject FBI Director James Comey has not seen fit to discuss.

BY TODD GITLIN | NOVEMBER 2, 2016

Image
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump supporters march in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)

For months now, journalists have noted the wrestler Vladimir Putin’s not-so-funny entanglement with Donald Trump. Newsweek, along with USA Today and The New York Times have written about what The Times described as a he-man “bromance” between the Republican presidential nominee (better known in America for wrestling other people out of their money) and the maximum leader Russians know to be no slouch at palling with oligarchs.

Some Democrats think there’s more to it than sexting. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) goes so far as to say, in a letter this week to FBI Director James Comey:

In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors and the Russian government….

What needs further exploration is another convergence between the crazy right and the Russian. They share crackpot ideas.

In August, I wrote about Trump surrogate Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s adventure in cozying up to Putin and RT. It’s not news, exactly, that Trump’s admiration for Putin is boundless. In December, when Joe Scarborough told Trump that Putin “kills journalists that don’t agree with him,” Trump replied:

Well, I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe. You know. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the world right now, Joe. A lot of killing going on and a lot of stupidity…I’ve always felt fine about Putin. I think he is a strong leader, he’s a powerful leader, he’s represented his country the way — the country is being represented. He’s got popularity within his country. They respect him as a leader, certainly the last couple of years they’ve respected him as the leader. Obama’s in the low 30s, upper 40s, and he’s in the 80s.

Mother Jones’s David Corn now reports that Russian intelligence has been cultivating Trump. This is not hard and fast. What does the FBI have to say? An FBI spokeswoman told Corn, “Normally, we don’t talk about whether we are investigating anything.”

Normally. Except when agency Director James Comey decides otherwise. Comey has been known to make insinuations about the content of emails without having read them.

It’s worth more attention that Russia is meddling in the politics of the still-democratic West.
Whether or not it “becomes clear” what “explosive information” Reid refers to, if indeed it exists, it’s worth more attention that Russia is meddling in the politics of the still-democratic West.

It’s been bruited about that Putin’s strategy is to make trouble for the West in the interest of neutralizing NATO as he goes about his expansionist schemes. It’s a plausible notion on the face of it, but there might be many ways to disrupt the West. Funny thing, though, is the particular method to their meddling. Putin has a characteristic and consistent way of making trouble: backing the far right.

Sometimes that’s with money. In 2014, Marine Le Pen’s nativist National Front received an €11 million loan from the Moscow-based First Czech Russian Bank. This year they’re asking for €27 million more.

Germany’s neo-fascist leader Jürgen Elsässer has likened Russia’s bombing of Aleppo to the successful wartime defense of Stalingrad, but what Germany’s nativist far right gets from Russia in return for compliments is not so clear.

Russia and its allies share not only contempt for liberal democracy but, increasingly, the same enemies list.

Which makes you wonder about WikiLeaks’ email dump before the Democratic Convention. Why did party or parties unknown hack into the Democrats’ mail and not the Republicans?

The ideological affinity between the Kremlin and the nativist right extends beyond foreign policy.
In June after the dump, a British reporter spoke to WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange: “Plainly, what you are saying, what you are publishing, hurts Hillary Clinton. Would you prefer Trump to be president?” Assange told the reporter “that what Mr. Trump would do as president was ‘completely unpredictable.’ By contrast, he thought it was predictable that Mrs. Clinton would wield power in…ways he found problematic.”

Assange has refused to say where he got the emails, but he has denied any Russian hand in the hack. There is some circumstantial evidence of Russian hacker tactics, but nothing conclusive.

The ideological affinity between the Kremlin and the nativist right extends beyond foreign policy. These days the Moscow propaganda network RT sounds like a head start on the hypothetical Trump TV, or like Glenn Beck during one of his diagram days where all arrows on the whiteboard led to George Soros.

Here’s the latest: a headline on a new column by one of their regulars, the American Robert Bridge: “And the Weiner is! Hillary Clinton and the obedient lapdog media.”

Forget the bad pun. It gets worse. Bridge writes: “[T]he US mainstream media is on a mission to prove, despite all indications to the contrary, that Hillary Rodham Clinton would make a squeaky clean political queen.” Here’s Bridge on the mainstream media’s “disastrous effort to protect Hillary Rodham Clinton come hell or high water.” In case you haven’t noticed, the mainstream media have been, in Bridge’s view, neglecting the all-time grand scandal of — wait for it — Clinton emails. And here’s Bridge’s bottom line:

[S]o long as the mainstream media has gained almost total purchase of the election process, heavily controlling what the voters see and hear, we will continue discussing the Russians, WikiLeaks and Anthony Weiner’s unhealthy sexting habit.

Bridge is living in an earlier century, when America’s mainstream media were as controlling as, say, Pravda. Patently, Trump would not object to such a media regime as long as he gets to control TV and the tabloids. If his fan mobs can’t get the job done pointing fingers and screaming at reporters, they’ll be looking for bludgeons.
http://billmoyers.com/story/putin-trump-axis/


NOVEMBER 4, 2016
Memo to Comey: Keep Your Damn Hands Off Our Elections
by MIKE WHITNEY

Without a shred of evidence and against the expressed wishes of his superiors at the Department of Justice, the head of the nation’s most prestigious law enforcement agency announced the reopening of an investigation into the mishandling of classified material by Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. The surprise announcement was delivered last Friday by FBI Director James Comey who knew that the action would create a cloud of suspicion around Clinton that could directly effect the outcome of the election.

Recent surveys suggest that that indeed has been the case, and that Hillary is now neck in neck with GOP contender Donald Trump going into the home-stretch of the bitterly contested campaign.

By inserting himself into the democratic process, Comey has ignored traditional protocols for postponing such announcements 60-days prior to an election, shrugged off the counsel of his bosses at the DOJ, and tilted the election in Trump’s favor. His action is as close to a coup d’état as anything we’ve seen in the U.S. since the Supreme Court stopped the counting of ballots in Florida in 2000 handing the election to George W. Bush.

It is not the job of the FBI to inform Congress about ongoing investigations. Comey’s job is to gather information and evidence that is pertinent to the case and present it to the DOJ where the decision to convene a grand jury is ultimately made. Comey is a renegade, a lone wolf who arbitrarily decided to abandon normal bureaucratic procedures in order to torpedo Clinton’s prospects for election. The widespread belief that Comey is a “good man who made a bad decision” is nonsense. He is an extremely intelligent and competent attorney with a keen grasp of Beltway politics. He knew what he was doing and he did it anyway. It’s absurd to make excuses for him.

In a carefully-crafted statement designed to deflect attention from his flagrant election tampering, Comey said this to his fellow agents:

“We don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed,” Comey said. “I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record.” (CNN)

Let’s take a minute and parse this statement. First: “We don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations.”

True, because it is not the FBI’s job to do so. The FBI’s job is to dig up evidence and refer it to the Justice Department. Comey is not the Attorney General although he has arbitrarily assumed her duties and authority.

Second: “I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record.”

“Supplement the record”?

That’s a pretty suggestive statement, don’t you think? When someone says they’re going to supplement the record, you naturally assume that they’re going to add important details to what the public already knows. Obviously, those details are not going to be flattering to Hillary or there’d be no reason to reopen the case. So the public is left with the impression Comey is going to produce damning information that could lead to an indictment of Hillary sometime in the future.

This is precisely why normal protocols require that no new investigations be announced 60 days before an election. Why?

Because the public invariably assumes that “investigation” equals “guilt”. In other words, “The FBI wouldn’t be investigating Hillary unless they had some dirt on her. Therefore, I’d better not waste my vote on Hillary.”

This is the logic upon which Comey’s dirty trick rests. He knows the effect his announcement will have because he is law enforcements version of Karl Rove, a bone fide partisan who’s mastered the dark art of political sabotage.

And just in case Comey’s announcement didn’t produce the desired effect (by destroying Hillary’s chances for victory), a former assistant director at the FBI, Tom Fuentes, appeared on CNN shortly after the announcement was made with more explicit information. Here’s a clip from the interview:

“The FBI has an intensive investigation ongoing into the Clinton Foundation,” Fuentes said Saturday, citing current and former senior FBI officials as sources…

According to the CNN report, officials with the FBI and Justice Department met in Washington earlier this year to discuss opening an investigation into possible conflicts of interest between the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton State Department.”

(“Former FBI Official: FBI Has An ‘Intensive Investigation’ Ongoing Into Clinton Foundation“, Daily Caller)

Okay. So we’re no longer dealing with just classified emails. The FBI expanded its investigation and is now wading through the real sewage, the pay-to-play corruption scandal that surrounds that vast reservoir of illicit contributions known as the Clinton Foundation. In other words, the FBI is on to something big, really BIG. I can almost see them dragging poor Hillary off to the hoosegow in leg irons and shackles. Isn’t that the impression the above quote is supposed to produce? Here’s more from Fuentes:

“Several FBI field offices and U.S. attorneys offices pushed for the investigation after receiving a tip from a bank about suspicious donations to the Clinton Foundation from a foreign donor, according to the report….” (Daily Caller)

“Foreign donors”, “suspicious donations”, smoky rooms, bundles of money. It all fits, doesn’t it? It’s all designed to increase suspicion and make Hillary look like a crook which, coincidentally, is the relentless mantra of the Trump campaign. Funny how the FBI and Trump appear to be reading from the same script, isn’t it? It’s almost like it was planned that way.

But what about the timing of all this? Is it really a coincidence or are Comey and Fuentes part of a one-two punch from the Trump campaign?

And, more important, what does the FBI actually have on Hillary? According to Fuentes:

“When the team looking at the Weiner computers went to the team of investigators who worked on the Clinton email case, and showed the emails to them earlier in the week, they said, “This is really significant. We need to take this to the Director.” (2:05 to 2:23 video)

Repeat: “This is significant”.

What’s significant? Neither Comey nor Fuentes nor the more than year-long investigation has uncovered anything, unless you think the ridiculous rehash of the 15-year old Marc Rich investigation (which popped up on the FBI website this week) is “new news” that should alter the course of the election. This is pathetic. If they have something, show us. Otherwise, Ferme ta bouche.

Check this out from Thursday’s Wall Street Journal:

“As 2015 came to a close, the FBI and Justice Department had a general understanding that neither side would take major action on Clinton Foundation matters without meeting and discussing it first. …

The public-integrity prosecutors weren’t impressed with the FBI presentation, people familiar with the discussion said. “The message was, ‘We’re done here,’ ” a person familiar with the matter said.

Justice Department officials became increasingly frustrated that the agents seemed to be disregarding or disobeying their instructions.

Following the February meeting, officials at Justice Department headquarters sent a message to all the offices involved to “stand down,’’ a person familiar with the matter said….

As prosecutors rebuffed their requests to proceed more overtly, those Justice Department officials became more annoyed that the investigators didn’t seem to understand or care about the instructions issued by their own bosses and prosecutors to act discreetly.

In subsequent conversations with the Justice Department, Mr. Capers told officials in Washington that the FBI agents on the case “won’t let it go,” these people said.” (Wall Street Journal)

Can you see what’s going on here? There’s a nest of rogue agents running wild at the FBI who’ve been giving the DOJ the finger while they conduct their witch hunt on Hillary. And what have they achieved?

Nothing! So far, they have nothing.

Now, I’m not a fan of Madame Clinton either, in fact I wouldn’t vote for her if they rubbed me down with bacon grease and stuck me in a bear cage, but, c’mon now, do we really want rogue cops and self righteous bureaucrats inserting themselves into our elections and picking the winners?

That’s bullshit.

If the FBI has some solid proof of wrongdoing that will put Hillary behind bars for good, than I say, “Bravo”. But until then, they should keep their damn hands off our elections!

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/04/ ... elections/


FBI under scrutiny amid speculation over Trump's Russian ties
http://www.france24.com/en/20161102-fbi ... a-manafort


seemslikeadream » Thu Nov 03, 2016 8:52 pm wrote:This needs to be a new thread because in the next few days there is going to be a whole lot more on the FBI and this election and I don't want it hidden away in the other threads ...


The FBI Wants to Make America Great Again
600NOV 3, 2016 6:00 AM EDT
By
Eli Lake
Maybe it’s just me, but I think the FBI is trying to send a message about next week’s election.



FBI examining fake documents targeting Clinton campaign: sources

By Mark Hosenball | WASHINGTON
The FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies are examining faked documents aimed at discrediting the Hillary Clinton campaign as part of a broader investigation into what U.S. officials believe has been an attempt by Russia to disrupt the presidential election, people with knowledge of the matter said.

U.S. Senator Tom Carper, a Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has referred one of the documents to the FBI for investigation on the grounds that his name and stationery were forged to appear authentic, some of the sources who had knowledge of that discussion said.

In the letter identified as fake, Carper is quoted as writing to Clinton, “We will not let you lose this election,” a person who saw the document told Reuters.

The fake Carper letter, which was described to Reuters, is one of several documents presented to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice for review in recent weeks, the sources said.

A spokeswoman for Carper declined to comment.

As part of an investigation into suspected Russian hacking, FBI investigators have also asked Democratic Party officials to provide copies of other suspected faked documents that have been circulating along with emails and other legitimate documents taken in the hack, people involved in those conversations said.

A spokesman for the FBI confirmed the agency was “in receipt of a complaint about an alleged fake letter” related to the election but declined further comment. Others with knowledge of the matter said the FBI was also examining other fake documents that recently surfaced.

U.S. intelligence officials have warned privately that a campaign they believe is backed by the Russian government to undermine the credibility of the U.S. presidential election could move beyond the hacking of Democratic Party email systems. That could include posting fictional evidence of voter fraud or other disinformation in the run-up to voting on Nov. 8, U.S. officials have said.

Russian officials deny any such effort.

In addition to the Carper letter, the FBI has also reviewed a seven-page electronic document that carries the logos of Democratic pollster Joel Benenson’s firm, the Benenson Strategy Group, and the Clinton Foundation, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

The document, identified as a fake by the Clinton campaign, claims poll ratings had plunged for Clinton and called for “severe strategy changes for November” that could include “staged civil unrest” and “radiological attack” with dirty bombs to disrupt the vote.

Like the Carper letter, it was not immediately clear where the fraudulent document had originated or how it had begun to circulate.

On Oct. 20, Roger Stone, a former Trump aide and Republican operative, linked to a copy of the document on Twitter with the tag, “If this is real: OMG!!”

Benenson’s firm had no immediate comment. Craig Minassian, a spokesman for the Clinton Foundation, said the document was “fake.” He said he did not know if the FBI had examined it.

Stone did not respond to emails requesting comment.

A spokesman for the Clinton campaign, Glen Caplin, said the document was a fake and part of a “desperate stunt” to capitalize on the leak of Democratic emails by Wikileaks.

The developments highlight the unusually prominent role U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies have played in a contentious election and an ongoing debate about how public they can or should be about their inquiries.

FBI Director James Comey, a Republican appointed by President Obama, touched off an outcry from Democrats last week when he alerted Congress that agents had found other emails that could be linked to an inquiry into Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was Secretary of State, effectively re-opening an investigation he had closed in July.

(Editing by Kevin Krolicki, John Walcott, Toni Reinhold)

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-e ... SKBN12Y2WY


Agent: FBI is ‘Trumplandia’

By Tim Devaney - 11/03/16 03:40 PM EDT
The FBI is “Trumplandia,” according to an agent who spoke anonymously to The Guardian newspaper.

In a report published Thursday, multiple sources within the FBI say that deep antipathy toward Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and anger that FBI Director James Comey did not bring charges against her this summer have motivated leaks that could damage her presidential campaign.

One agent told The Guardian that many at the bureau view Clinton as the “antichrist” and are supportive of Trump.

“That’s the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump,” the FBI agent told The Guardian.

But another FBI source disputed the level of support Trump has within the bureau, according to The Guardian.

“There are lots of people who don’t think Trump is qualified, but also believe Clinton is corrupt,” the source said. “What you hear a lot is that it’s a bad choice, between an incompetent and a corrupt politician.”

According to the report, the tensions boiled over in July when Comey declined to recommend charges against the Democratic presidential nominee for possibly mishandling classified information through her use of a private email server to conduct government business, according to the FBI agent.

Comey last week sent a letter to congressional committees notifying them that the FBI was looking at new emails uncovered in a separate investigation that could be related to the Clinton case. The FBI has come under tremendous criticism from Democrats and some Republicans for interfering with the election by releasing that information to Congress just under two weeks from Election Day.

There have been further leaks about internal fights within the FBI and other possible investigations since the Comey news broke, all of which has suggested an agency in a public war with itself.




FBI launches internal investigation into its own Twitter account
An FBI tweet may have crossed the line.

The FBI has launched an internal investigation into one of its own Twitter accounts.
The account at issue, @FBIRecordsVault, had been dormant for more than a year. Then on October 30 at 4 a.m., the account released a flood of documents, including one describing Donald Trump’s father Fred Trump as a “philanthropist.”

But it wasn’t until two days later, when the account tweeted documents regarding President Bill Clinton’s controversial pardon of Marc Rich, that the account began to attract significant attention.

The account has not been active since that tweet.
ThinkProgress has learned that the FBI’s Inspection Division will undertake an investigation of the account.
Candice Will, Assistant Director for the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility, said she was referring the matter to the FBI’s Inspection Division for an “investigation.” Upon completion of the investigation, the findings will be referred back to the the Office of Professional Responsibility for “adjudication.”
Federal law and FBI policy prohibit employees from using the power of the department to attempt to influence elections.
Will was responding to a complaint from Jonathan Hutson, a former investigative reporter who now works in communication in Washington, DC. She did not respond to requests, via phone and email, for further comment.
Nancy McNamara, the Assistant Director of the FBI’s Inspection Division, also confirmed to Hutson that she had received the complaint. She copied Voviette Morgan, a 19-year veteran now serving as Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Los Angeles office.
News of the internal investigation is at odds with the FBI’s official position, which is that the Twitter account followed all FBI procedures.
“Per the standard procedure for FOIA, these materials became available for release and were posted automatically and electronically to the FBI’s public reading room in accordance with the law and established procedures,” the FBI said in a statement.
The strange tweets come days after James Comey released a letter revealing that the department was reviewing some emails that could be relevant to the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server. The Justice Department opposed release of the letter, arguing that it violated department protocols.
Since that time, there has been a series of leaks about FBI activity that appear to be designed to damage Hillary Clinton and benefit Donald Trump. An anonymous source for example, leaked to the Wall Street Journal that there was an investigation — including “secret recordings” — into the Clinton Foundation. The New York Times, also citing anonymous sources, reported that the FBI believed that Russia was just trying to disrupt the U.S. election, not help Donald Trump.

https://thinkprogress.org/fbi-launches- ... .vosttcd7n



The Theory That the FBI Is Out to Get Clinton Is Becoming More Plausible

By Ben Mathis-Lilley
The Federal Bureau of Investigations headquarters in Washington, USA on August 26, 2016.


When Democrats reacted to FBI Director James Comey's letter to Congress about the sort-of-reopened investigation into Hillary Clinton's private server by accusing Comey of trying to meddle in the election on behalf of the Republican Party, the accusation seemed far-fetched. Comey was, until last Friday, generally despised by Republicans for his earlier decision to recommend against prosecuting Clinton. But while there's been of yet no evidence revealed that Comey himself has an ax to grind, a number of data points have emerged indicating the presence of a politically motivated anti-Clinton faction within the agency.

For one, leaks keep coming out of the FBI that are unflattering to Clinton. First there was the revelation that the Clinton emails the FBI is currently checking for classified info came from Anthony Weiner's computer. (A good rule of thumb is that no political candidate wants his/her name anywhere near a headline that also involves the notorious A-Weens.) Then there was a story on Fox News (and a much more measured one in the Wall Street Journal) about the existence of an investigation into potential corruption at the Clinton Foundation. And the FBI also tweeted about a document release related to Bill Clinton's controversial pardon of Marc Rich.

On a parallel track, there was a report Thursday in the Guardian about FBI agents actively supporting Trump:

“The FBI is Trumpland,” said one current agent ... The currently serving FBI agent said Clinton is “the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel,” and that “the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump.”
Longtime Trump expert Wayne Barrett wrote Thursday in the Daily Beast, meanwhile, about the connections between Trump and the FBI. The FBI Agents Association—a unionlike 13,000-member group—has close ties to Rudy Giuliani, a top Trump surrogate, and Giuliani has said on Fox News that he's in touch with current agents who are upset about Comey's decision not to prosecute Clinton. A former agent named Jim Kallstrom has appeared on Fox several times saying the same thing; Kallstrom's Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation has received funding from Trump and the Trump Foundation, and one of its directors is Rush Limbaugh.

The Guardian piece notes that other sources besides its quoted agent "dispute the depth of support for Trump within the bureau." And Barrett is writing only about Trump allies making claims of connections to current agents; we don't know whether those connections are in fact as strong as Giuliani and Kallstrom make them out to be, or whether said agents are upset about the Clinton email situation specifically because they support Trump. But when you combine the Guardian/Barrett reports with the kind of leaks that are coming out, Democrats' dark suggestions about the FBI's motives start to sound less like the reflexively defensive innuendo they at first seemed.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/ ... _says.html


Anti-Clinton Sentiment Reportedly Prompted FBI Leaks: 'The FBI Is Trumpland'

http://www.complex.com/life/2016/11/fbi ... ry-clinton



OpticsPolitics
Joy Reid ‏@JoyAnnReid 22h22 hours ago
To reiterate: if the @WSJ story is correct, the FBI mounted an investigation based on a book that financially benefits the GOP campaign CEO.



Bad, Bad Stuff Out of FBI

ByJOSH MARSHALL
Published

NOVEMBER 3, 2016, 7:00 PM EDT

Mark Hosenball has another look inside what's been happening at the FBI. It's another slice of the story but one that is consistent with Spencer Ackerman's piece in The Guardian and the best reporting I've seen on James Comey's role in this. I continue to think that one key part of Comey's role was simply a mix of naivete and indifference about the effect of his letter. Another driving force, though, as Hosenball reports, was fear of leaks and the Republican criticism they would drive.

From Hosenball ...
FBI Director James Comey was driven in part by a fear of leaks from within his agency when he decided to tell Congress the FBI was investigating newly discovered emails related to Hillary Clinton, law enforcement sources said on Thursday.
And this (emphasis added) ...
Two law enforcement sources familiar with the FBI's New York Field Office, which initially discovered the emails, said a faction of investigators based in the office is known to be hostile to Hillary Clinton. A spokeswoman for the FBI's New York office said she had no knowledge about this.
Democratic Party sources said such a faction was likely responsible for a recent surge in media leaks on alleged details of an ongoing FBI investigation of the Clinton Foundation.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/bad ... out-of-fbi




THURSDAY, NOV 3, 2016 02:16 PM CDT
Donald Trump’s FBI: James Comey’s department is filled with pro-Trump, anti-Hillary Clinton partisans

The bureau seems to be filled with partisan hacks hell-bent on investigating Hillary Clinton

MATTHEW ROZSA

Under the FBI’s director, James Comey, whose ethically challenged letter sent last Friday put wind in Republican Donald Trump’s sails, the bureau appears to be ready to kick off a partisan witch hunt against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton — and it’s all because the agents harbor a pro-Trump bias.

As The Guardian reported on Thursday, sources within the FBI told the newspaper that many agents were outraged that Comey decided to not recommend an indictment against Clinton in July in connection with her use of a private email server. Last Friday Comey signaled in his letter that the agency is reviewing newly surfaced emails to see if they are pertinent to the now closed Clinton investigation.

“The FBI is Trumpland,” one agent told The Guardian, with another describing how Clinton is “the antichrist personified to a large swathe of FBI personnel” and “the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump.”

While some of The Guardian’s sources disagreed that the FBI is overwhelmingly pro-Trump, all indicated that the attitude toward Clinton is extremely negative.

“There are lots of people who don’t think Trump is qualified, but also believe Clinton is corrupt,” said a former FBI official. “What you hear a lot is that it’s a bad choice, between an incompetent and a corrupt politician.”

VideoThe FBI Reopens Its Investigation of Hillary Clinton’s Emails


One of these partisan agents is feeding Fox News’ Brett Baier, who claimed on Wednesday that he had sources in the FBI personally assuring him that Clinton is going to be indicted.

“Two separate sources with intimate knowledge of the FBI investigations into the Clinton emails and the Clinton Foundation tell Fox the following,” Baier said on his show. “The investigation looking into possible pay-for-play interaction between secretary of state Hillary Clinton and the foundation has been going on for more than a year. Led by the white-collar crime division, public corruption branch of the criminal investigative division of the FBI.”

There have been hints at an anti-Clinton bias in the FBI before now. Two days before Comey released his October surprise, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani (who has very close connections to the FBI) told Fox, “I think [Donald Trump’s] got a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next few days. I mean, I’m talking about some pretty big surprises.” When asked what he meant by that, he said, “We’ve got a couple of things up our sleeve that should turn this thing around.”

After Comey released his letter last Friday, Giuliani appeared on radio saying that many FBI agents believed that not charging Clinton was “completely unjustified and almost a slap in the face to the FBI’s integrity. I know that from former agents. I know that even from a few active agents.”
http://www.salon.com/2016/11/03/donald- ... partisans/
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: NSA Chief Russia Hacked '16 Election Congress Must Inves

Postby DrEvil » Sat Dec 10, 2016 1:07 pm

Nordic » Sat Dec 10, 2016 7:09 am wrote:Putin meddling in the elections here?

Total crock of shit.

And sure he preferred Trump over Hillary. HILLARY WANTED A WAR WITH RUSSIA.

So not wanting to have a war with the US makes him bad??

Da fuck?!


Him being a fascist oligarch makes him bad. I have no trouble seeing him meddling with the US election, exactly because it's in his interest for Trump to win, just like the US meddles in elections to get their favored lapdogs elected all over the world. Russia is no better.

Serbia deports Russians suspected of plotting Montenegro coup
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... negro-coup
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Re: NSA Chief Russia Hacked '16 Election Congress Must Inves

Postby Rory » Sat Dec 10, 2016 3:51 pm

Jesus christ. Ill get carpal tunnel rsi if i keep having to scroll past this mountain of dogshit copy pasta propaganda.

At least the iraq war lies were kind of entertaining. This heap of contrived manure is distracting people from the very real military take over of the levers of civilian government.
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Re: NSA Chief Russia Hacked '16 Election Congress Must Inves

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Dec 10, 2016 3:54 pm

who is forcing you to even click on this thread?

don't ever ask me for a favor again

you won't get it

maybe it would be best if you just ignored me...less stress on your wrists

you are free to post anything you think is of interest...post away

were are all these posts of yours...please provide a link so I can decide if your heap of contrived manure is distracting people from something
very real military take over of the levers of civilian government.


please post something of value here...I would love to read it..how can I be distracted when you post nothing of value whatsoever?

you are just a granny complainer

very real military take over of the levers of civilian government.


why don't you go to the pizza thread there's a whole lot of that going on there :roll:
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: NSA Chief Russia Hacked '16 Election Congress Must Inves

Postby Nordic » Sat Dec 10, 2016 4:16 pm

What bullshit. What has happened to RI?

Listen, I admire and respect Putin more than anyone in the US government right now.

Except maybe for Tulsi Gabbard.

Seriously, you guys are "this close" to posting photos of monster trucks covered in American flags and memes like "kick their ass, take their gas".

I've got some WMD's in Iraq I'd like to sell you. I take PayPal.
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