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FBI Tag

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.

Monday, the FBI raided Michael Cohen's office. Cohen is Trump's personal attorney. Now, Geoffrey Berman, the Trump-appointed Interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, is recused from the Cohen investigation. Berman's status as a Trump temporary appointee was used to claim that the warrant was not politically motivated. But now it turns out that Berman had recused himself and had nothing to do with the warrant against Cohen.

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.

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:

Terry James Albury was charged by the Department of Justice under the Espionage Act this week. Albury, who worked as a counterterrorism liaison for the Minneapolis--St. Paul International Airport was, "charged this week by the Justice Department's National Security Division with one count of "knowingly and willfully" transmitting documents and information relating to national defense to a reporter for a national news organization. Albury was also charged with a second count of refusing to hand over documents to the government," according to MPR.

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.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has fired outgoing FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was set to retire in about 24 hours. From The Washington Post:
Sessions announced the decision in a statement just before 10 p.m., noting that both the Justice Department Inspector General and the FBI office that handles discipline had found “that Mr. McCabe had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor — including under oath — on multiple occasions.”

Nothing to see here I guess except that the man who provided the tip to the FBI that started the whole Trump-Russia collusion investigation has ties to failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. A recent report claims former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer organized a $25 million donation to the Clinton Foundation.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) has sent ten questions to former and current government officials about the dossier published by Fusion GPS against then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, funded by failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign and the DNC. Former British spy Christopher Steele authored the dossier. The ten questions include when they became aware of the information in the dossier and how they handled it.