DOJ | Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion - Part 26
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DOJ Tag

In February 2011, the Obama/Holder DOJ abruptly announced it would refuse to continue defending the Defense of Marriage Act after years of arguing in Court that DOMA was constitutional. In defending DOMA for years, the DOJ was upholding an important principle, that DOJ should defend existing laws in court so long as there was any reasonable basis for doing so.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted James Wolfe, the Senate Intelligence Committee's former security director, for allegedly lying to the FBI about possible leaks to three reporters. The FBI investigated how New York Times reporter Ali Watkins "learned that Russian spies in 2013 had tried to recruit Carter Page, a former Trump foreign policy adviser" after she published an article about it at BuzzFeed. Turns out, Watkins and Wolfe had a relationship for three years.

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.