Report: James Comey ‘Defied Authority’ While Serving as FBI Director

by Scott Kelnhofer


Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report about the Justice Department and FBI’s 2016 investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server is expected to be made public in the coming weeks, and one source told ABC News the draft of the report uses the word “insubordinate” to describe former FBI Director James Comey’s behavior.

“The draft of Horowitz’s wide-ranging report specifically called out Comey for ignoring objections from the Justice Department when he disclosed in a letter to Congress just days before the 2016 presidential election that FBI agents had reopened the Clinton probe, according to sources,” ABC reported.

Horowitz’s draft report was also critical of Comey for failing to consult with Attorney General Loretta Lynch and other senior Justice Department officials before making his July 5, 2016 announcement on national TV in which he said said that while there was no “clear evidence” that Clinton “intended to violate” the law, the former secretary of state was “extremely careless” in her “handling of very sensitive, highlyclassified informaion."

Horowitz also criticized former Attorney General Loretta Lynch in the draft report for her handling of the federal investigation into Clinton’s personal email server, the sources told ABC News.

The draft of the report was finished last month. Horowitz said the Justice Department and FBI will be permitted to submit a formal response that will be attached to the final report.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump went on Twitter to complain about the delay in the report’s release.

The report has been widely expected to be critical of Comey. The only question is just how damaging the report would be of the former FBI director.  “It’s not going to be good, it’s just a question of how bad it’s going to be,” a former Justice Department official told CNN last month of what’s expected to be in Horowitz’s report.

CNN law enforcement analyst James Gagliano said sources tell him to expect “a damning indictment” of Comey and the FBI’s upper echelon.

According to a May 16 report in The Washington Post, “The report is expected to blast former FBI director James B. Comey for various steps he took in the investigation, particularly his announcing in July — without telling his Justice Department bosses what he was about to say — that the FBI was recommending that Clinton not be charged, and for revealing to Congress just weeks before the presidential election that the bureau had resumed its work.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, the report is also expected to scrutinize whether former FBI Director Andrew McCabe should have recused himself from the Clinton investigation, since his wife’s campaign for the Virginia legislature was aided by then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Clinton ally.

The report is also likely to criticize the thousands of texts exchanged by two FBI employees — agent Peter Strzok and attorney Lisa Page — who were extremely critical of President Donald Trump and others, the WSJ reported.  The report is currently being reviewed and is expected to be released this month.

What is taking so long with the Inspector General’s Report on Crooked Hillary and Slippery James Comey. Numerous delays. Hope Report is not being changed and made weaker! There are so many horrible things to tell, the public has the right to know. Transparency!Rudy Giuliani, one of the president’s lawyers, told the Associated Press in recent days that he believed the report would be damaging to Comey’s reputation.

“This is going to be the final nail in his coffin,” Giuliani said of Comey. “This guy has already proven to be a leaker and liar and we believe the report is going to make that plain.”

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WSJ Reporter: We’ve Confirmed the Worst – US Intel Truly Was Spying on Trump Camp

by Cillian Zeal

 

A Wednesday piece by The New York Times which details the FBI’s investigation into Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign may have revealed more than intended, at least if a Wall Street Journal reporter who has covered the surveillance previously is correct. 

The Journal’s Kimberley Strassel has written about the investigation in the past. In a piece last week, she posited that the FBI may have used a mole in the Trump campaign, particularly given the Department of Justice’s reluctance to turn over information about the informant to congressional investigators.

The Times piece revealed more details about the Trump campaign surveillance operation — called “Crossfire Hurricane” in reference to the Rolling Stones song “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” — and just how extensive it was. While the tenor of the article, which was written by Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman and Nicholas Fandos, is overwhelmingly favorable to the FBI and dismisses any claims that the surveillance was politically motivated ,(“I never saw anything that resembled a witch hunt or suggested that the bureau’s approach to the investigation was politically driven,” one DOJ official is quoted as saying) there were a few things buried deep in there that specifically caught Strassel’s attention.

In a tweetstorm Wednesday evening, Strassel noted key problems in The Times’ narrative, particularly when the story appeared and significant facts that they glossed over. 

Strassel first argued that the article was a calculated leak of sorts in an effort to get out ahead of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and the information that he’s gathering and releasing regarding the FBI’s sources on the Trump investigation. 

1. So a few important points on that new NYT "Hurricane Crossfire" piece. A story that, BTW, all of us following this knew had to be coming. This is DOJ/FBI leakers' attempt to get in front of the facts Nunes is forcing out, to make it not sound so bad. Don't buy it. It's bad.

However, she says it proves what Trump was claiming all along: namely, that his campaign was being spied upon. 

Biggest takeaway: Govt "sources" admit that, indeed, the Obama DOJ and FBI spied on the Trump campaign. Spied. (Tho NYT kindly calls spy an "informant.") NYT slips in confirmation far down in story, and makes it out like it isn't a big deal. It is a very big deal.

— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) May 17, 2018

The story briefly mentions that “one government informant met several times with Mr. Page and Mr. Papadopoulos, current and former officials said. That has become a politically contentious point, with Mr. Trump’s allies questioning whether the FBI was spying on the Trump campaign or trying to entrap campaign officials.”  However, if that informant met several times with two low-level Trump campaign officials, one wonders just what his role — if any — in the Trump campaign might have been. It seems somewhat unlikely that a random individual outside the campaign would have had the opportunity to meet with both George Papadopoulos and Carter Page without some suspicion being aroused if the informant didn’t have extremely close ties to the campaign.


Breaking: Rosenstein Personally Approved FBI Raid of Trump Lawyer

by Randy DeSoto


Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein reportedly personally approved the Monday morning FBI raids on President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen’s home and offices.

The New York Times reported that the FBI seized emails, tax documents and records, some of which are related to Cohen’s $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the days before the November 2016 presidential election.

According to The Times, a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller proceeded Rosenstein’s decision to green light the raid.

The Justice Department obtained a search warrant from a federal judge in New York, which would have required prosecutors to argue the FBI would likely find evidence of criminal activity.  A source told The Times that the documents identified in the warrant date back years.  Trump took the DOJ to task on Monday night during a meeting at the White House with his national security team.  He noted that Rosenstein approved a renewal of a FISA warrant, which authorized the FBI to continue surveil Trump campaign associate Carter Page during the early months of the new administration in 2017.

Asked by a reporter if Rosenstein would keep his job, Trump did not respond.  However, the president did voice his frustration with Sessions and Mueller. “(Sessions) should have certainly let us know if he was going to recuse himself, and we would have put a different attorney general in,” Trump said. “So he made what I consider to be a very terrible mistake for the country, but you’ll figure that out.”

Sessions’ recusal led to Rosenstein taking over Russia investigation, which resulted in his appointment of Mueller as special counsel.  The president said the Mueller investigation is “an attack on our country in a true sense. It’s an attack on what we all stand for” and called Mueller’s actions against Cohen “a disgrace.”


RELATED: Former Board Member Dershowitz Hammers ACLU for Support of Trump Attorney Raid

Attorney–client privilege is dead!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 10, 2018

Asked whether he will fire Mueller, the president replied, “We’ll see what happens,” and, “Many people have said you should fire him.”

Mueller Investigating $150k Trump Donation from Ukranian Who Gave Hillary $13 Million

by Chuck Ross


Special counsel Robert Mueller’s office is investigating a $150,000 donation a Ukrainian businessman made to President Donald Trump’s charity in 2015, according to a new report.  The donation, from steel magnate Victor Pinchuk, pales in comparison to contributions he gave to the charity established by Bill and Hillary Clinton.  The billionaire has contributed $13 million to the Clinton Foundation since 2006 and had access to Hillary Clinton while she served as secretary of state.

But Mueller is not investigating the Clintons. Instead, he is conducting a broad investigation of Trump, including the flow of foreign money into various Trump-controlled entities. Mueller began investigating the Pinchuk donation after receiving documents in response to a subpoena issued to the Trump Organization — the real estate company Trump ran before entering politics.

In September 2015, Trump appeared via video link at a conference Pinchuk hosted in Kiev. Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, negotiated details of the event with Douglas Schoen, a former consultant for Bill Clinton, according to The New York Times.

Trump did not initially request payment for the appearance, but Cohen contacted Schoen at one point to request a $150,000 honorarium, The Times reported.

In a seemingly unrelated matter, the FBI raided Cohen’s Manhattan office and residence on Monday. The search was reportedly conducted for records related to Cohen’s payments to Stormy Daniels, a porn star claiming to have had an affair with Trump in 2006.

The Victor Pinchuk Foundation issued a statement to The Times, downplaying the donation to Trump. The charity reached out to Trump and other world leaders in order to “promote strengthened and enduring ties between Ukraine and the West,” it said.  Contact with Trump was made at a time when “it was by no means assured that Mr. Trump would be the Republican nominee in 2016,” the foundation pointed out.  Pinchuk appears to have had a much closer relationship to the Clintons.

In June 2012, the billionaire attended a dinner at the Clintons’ residence. And through Schoen, Pinchuk lobbied the State Department in 2011 and 2013.  Documents filed with the Justice Department show Schoen and Pinchuk met on several occasions in 2012 with Melanne Verveer, a close Clinton associate who then served as an ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues.

RELATED: Dershowitz: Mueller’s Setting Stage To Impeach Trump


Bill Clinton attended Pinchuk’s annual Yalta conference, The New York Times reported on Feb. 13, 2014. Pinchuk also attended the former president’s 65th birthday party in Los Angeles.

The FBI reportedly investigated the Clinton Foundation over its foreign donations. The status of that investigation is unclear.

This story originally appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.