Image 01 Image 03

DOJ Tag

Outgoing Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) caused quite a stir when he said on TV that he found no evidence that the FBI spied on President Donald Trump's campaign after he received a briefing from the DOJ and FBI. Now reports have emerged that Gowdy and others at the meeting did not see any documents or subpoenas they requested.

The Hill has reported that the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees will interview three witnesses in June over the FBI's handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email probe. They will interview "Bill Priestap, the assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, and Michael Steinbach, the former head of the FBI’s national security division," along with "John Giacalone, who preceded Steinbach as the bureau's top national security official and oversaw the first seven months of the Clinton probe."

As we noted yesterday, the leftstream media is busily trying to spin the Obama FBI's spying on the Trump campaign. Today, President Trump has announced that his will formally demand that his DOJ investigate "whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes - and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!"

In The Wall Street Journal, Kimberley Strassel penned an op-ed that suggests the FBI may have placed a mole within then-GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign since the department will not reveal its top-secret source. And when did the FBI become so secretive? A former FBI agent wrote in the WSJ that in his time, Congress wouldn't ever need to request a subpoena to retrieve information from the bureau.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), head of the House Freedom Caucus, has sent a letter to Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) to persuade him to look closer at documents recently uncovered about the texts between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. To Meadows, the documents appear to "suggest a concerning level of coordination between the Department of Justice and the FBI throughout crucial moments" during the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server.

CNN has reported that the Department of Justice's inspector general sent a criminal referral of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to the US attorneys office in DC. Last week, the IG office published its report on McCabe revealing that McCabe authorized a leak to The Wall Street Journal in an attempt to boost himself, but lied to investigators and former FBI Director James Comey.

The federal court in the Southern District of New York is continuing today the hearing on the objections of Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen regarding records seized from his law office and home. For the background and court pleadings, please see the prior post, Trump attorney Michael Cohen goes to Court to get back seized records. Last night we reported that Trump's attorney's had filed a Letter Motion objecting to the feds doing a privilege review of the seized materials, Trump court filing in Michael Cohen case: Objects to DOJ/FBI “taint team” deciding what is attorney-client privileged.

On Monday, April 16, 2018, the court in the Southern District of New York will continue its hearing on the motion by Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen for return of records seized from his law office and home. In the alternative, Cohen seeks severe restrictions on the government's ability to review the records, even if the government follows its procedures to have a so-called "taint team" do so. For the background and court pleadings, please see the prior post, Trump attorney Michael Cohen goes to Court to get back seized records.

The DOJ Inspector General dropped its report (pdf.)(full embed at bottom of post) on former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and it's a doozy. It turns out that McCabe authorized a leak to the Wall Street Journal in an attempt to boost himself, but lied to investigators and former FBI Director James Comey. Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe in March due to recommendations from a department senior official and early reports on McCabe's behavior.

Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen has filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York for a Temporary Restraining Order regarding the records and evidence seized by the government when it executed a search warrant on Cohen's offices and homes on April 9, 2018. According to news reports, a hearing started this morning and is ongoing this afternoon before Judge Kimba Wood.

There isn't much of a pretense anymore that the Mueller investigation is about alleged Russian campaign collusion. Maybe it started out about collusion, but it veered off course within a couple of months, when Mueller decided that Paul Manafort needed to be investigated for conduct many years ago having nothing to do with the campaign, or even Russia. Rod Rosenstein created the paperwork in early August 2017 to retroactively expand Mueller's investigation and justify Mueller conduct that already had taken place.

The FBI raid on the home and office of Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen reportedly took place after a referral from Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The search warrant apparently was obtained by the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York.

As a "caravan of migrants" makes its way to our Southern border, President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions are working in tandem to tighten border security. The migrants are marching toward our southern border with the intent of entering the U. S. by seeking asylum, crossing illegally, or by exploiting the ongoing “catch and release” policy. Additionally, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reported a 203% increase in illegal border crossings from March 2017 to March 2018 and a 37% increase from February 2018 to March 2018.

The breaking news last night was that the DOJ Office of Inspector General announced it was launching an investigation of possible Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court abuse. The presumption, though not literally in the OIG announcement, was that it concerned the FISA warrant to surveil Carter Page based on the Steele dossier.

The surveillance of Carter Page, based in part on the Steele Memo, has been the subject of a House Intelligence Committee memo authored by the Republican majority, and a Democrat counter-memo. The heart of the dispute is the failure to inform the FISA court that the Steele memo, which is almost entirely unverified, was paid for by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, and that Steele was hostile to Trump. Carter Page, however, clearly was not the target, he was the excuse, as I wrote last month:

The Trump administration has slapped sanctions on an Iranian company and nine Iranians for hacking into American universities. A tenth person received sanctions after he hacked accounts belonging to HBO employees to steal data and unaired episodes of shows like Game of Thrones. Officials said these individuals do not work for the regime, but did their work for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.