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trunewsofficial · 5 years

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FBI Releases Bruce Ohr ‘302s’ to Judicial Watch

Bombshell new records show that despite an anti-Trump bias, the FBI continued to use the Steele Dossier for FISA applications to spy on the Trump campaign. Overnight, Judicial Watch released de-classified copies of the FBI’s notes from agents’ interviews with then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr. Here is the government watchdog’s statement about the so-called “302” documents: These documents were obtained in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the Justice Department for failing to respond to an August 6, 2018 FOIA request seeking Form 302s for a number of interviews with Ohr concerning his interactions with Steele (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-02107)). A Form 302 is used by FBI agents to summarize the interviews that they conduct and contains information from the notes taken during the interview. On November 22, 2016, Bruce Ohr said that “reporting on Trump’s ties to Russia were going to the Clinton Campaign, Jon Winer at the U.S. State Department and the FBI.” In late September 2016, Ohr describes a person (likely Christopher Steele) as “desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being the U.S. President.” “Ohr knew that [Fusion GPS’s] Glen Simpson and others talking to Victoria Nuland at the U.S. State Department.” Glenn Simpson directed a person whose is redacted to speak to the press. It appears as if the press that person went to was the far left leaning Mother Jones. On December 5, 2016, Ohr promised to “voluntarily” give his wife Nellie Ohr’s Fusion GPS research to the FBI. He also provided the FBI with a report on Paul Manafort titled, “Manafort Chronology.” On December 12, 2016 Simpson gave Ohr a thumb drive with Fusion GPS research on it. Ohr claims to not know what is on that drive. During the meeting Simpson, based evidently on a meeting with Glenn Simpson, identified Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal lawyer as having “many Russian clients.” Simpson also told Ohr that Cohen, “may have” attended a meeting in Prague. Ohr describes Simpson directing someone to talk to the Mother Jones reporter “as it was Simpson’s Hail Mary attempt.” On December 20, 2016, Ohr provided the FBI with his wife’s Nellie Ohr’s Fusion GPS research, “which contained the totality” of her work “but the Fusion GPS header was stripped.” On January 23, 2017, Ohr tells the FBI that Steele told him that Steele “spoke with a staff member of Senator John McCain’s office sometime prior to October 2016.” The FBI interviews show that Ohr texted and talked to Christopher Steele using the WhatsApp application. On February 2, 2017, the FBI tells Ohr to see if Steele would be “comfortable getting the name of an FBI agent” as a contact. Ohr tells the agents that State Department official Kathleen Kavalec spoke with “Steele several times prior to the U.S. Presidential election and believed Steele’s reporting to have [been] generated mainly from [REDACTED]. On February 14, 2017, Ohr tells the FBI that Steele communicated with him via Facetime that Steele was “beginning to worry about his business.” Steele discussed brokering new business with the FBI and told Ohr, “You may see me re-emerge in a couple of weeks.” On May 3, 2017, Steele called Ohr to tell him that he “had been worried about Director Comey’s upcoming testimony to Congress, especially his response to questions that would be raised by (Senator) Grassley.” Although what he was specifically worried about is redacted, Steele was “happy with Director Comey’s response.” Steele also stated that he was limited in “his ability to testify before Congress” because of disclosure laws in the UK being more narrow than the United States. On May 12, 2017, Steele called Ohr to discuss a letter the Senate Intelligence Committee sent him. According to Ohr, “The letter requested answers to the following questions: Had Steele provided information to the US Government? What was the scope of Steele’s investigation? Did Steele have any additional information to provide? In May, 2017, Ohr was asked by the FBI to ask “Steele if he would be willing to have a conversation with FBI agents in the UK.” Steele responded that he would, but he would need to check with a redacted name. “These new Bruce Ohr FBI 302s show an unprecedented and irregular effort by the FBI, DOJ, and State Department to dig up dirt on President Trump using the conflicted Bruce Ohr, his wife, and the Clinton/DNC spies at Fusion GPS,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The FISA courts weren’t informed of this corrupted process when they were asked to approve and reapprove extraordinary spy warrants targeting President Trump.” In June, Judicial Watch uncovered documents showing the removal of Bruce Ohr November 13, 2016, Ohr was given a performance award of $28,000. This was during the time of his deep involvement in the highly controversial Justice Department surveillance of the Trump presidential campaign. The bonus was nearly double the $14,250 performance award he was given on November 29, 2015. Bruce Ohr was married to Nellie Ohr of Fusion GPS and was removed because of his conflict of interest and role as conduit for Fusion GPS material. Ohr was removed from his position as Associate Deputy Attorney General on December 6, 2017. On January 7, 2018, Ohr was reassigned from his position of director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) and shifted to Counselor for International Affairs in the Department of Justice Criminal Division. Ohr received a $2,600 pay increase. One of Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuits recently produced information from the DOJ showing a conversation between former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Kathleen Kavalec Bruce Ohr, discussing the targeting of Donald Trump with Steele dossier material. In discussing a meeting with the potential source for a Mother Jones article accusing the Trump campaign of taking money from a Russian-American oil magnate, as well as Christopher Steele’s connection to that source, Kavalec emails Ohr citing the accusatory Mother Jones article. Ohr says, “I really hope we can get something going here.” Also, Judicial Watch obtained an email revealing that Nellie Ohr, wife of Bruce Ohr, informed him that she was deleting emails sent from his DOJ email account. The full email exchange is between Bruce Ohr, Lisa Holtyn, Nellie Ohr, and Stefan Bress, a first secretary at the German Embassy, and is part of 339 pages of heavily redacted records from the U.S. Department of Justice. Judicial Watch uncovered emails from Ohr showing that he remained in regular contact with former British spy and Fusion GPS contractor Christopher Steele after Steele was terminated by the FBI in November 2016 for revealing to the media his position as an FBI confidential informant. The records show that Ohr served as a go-between for Steele by passing along information to “his colleagues” on matters relating to Steele’s activities. Ohr also set up meetings with Steele, regularly talked to him on the telephone and provided him assistance in dealing with situations Steele was confronting with the media. Judicial Watch is suing the DOJ for communications between two of the pivotal players in the Deep State, anti-Trump collusion – former FBI official Peter Strzok and Ohr (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-01082)). Judicial Watch is challenging the Justice Department’s extraordinary claim that there are no records of communications between Strzok and Ohr in light of the preeminent role both individuals played in the Deep State effort to undermine the Trump campaign and administration. In addition, Ohr himself testified before Congress that he did, in fact, meet and communicate with Strzok. Judicial Watch also seeks records about the agency’s involvement in persuading President Trump to defer his September 2018 decision to declassify DOJ documents related to the Russia investigation (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-00507)). Judicial Watch’s lawsuit is also seeking DOJ official Ohr’s records of communications around the time of Trump’s declassification announcement. In all, 34 pages were released by the Justice Department and FBI, and they were heavily redacted. Speaking with FOX News Channel host Sean Hannity on Thursday night, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said: “Let's start from the beginning. Christopher Steele had been working for the FBI during the campaign and the FBI fired him because he was a leaker. So they went to Bruce Ohr, whose wife was working at Fusion GPS, after the election, and started talking to Ohr who was talking to Steele, and Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS. And these are the reports of those discussions. “And according to these documents, the first one they release, it's clearly referencing Steele, although they don't mention his name. He says that this person, presumably Steele, was quote, desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being the U.S. president … “So, Bruce Ohr continues to talk to the FBI and the DOJ. He confirms that it Glenn Simpson at the Fusion GPS had been talking to the State Department and this information was going over to a State Department official, the Clinton campaign, and the FBI. Talk about a joint operation. “Steel and Bruce Ohr are communicating using the WhatsApp application. An application that provides secure communication which is -- you know, if that doesn't suggest there is something wrong going on, I don't know what does … “He is funneling information directly from Fusion GPS on thumb drives to him, including a thumb drive from his wife's research for your Fusion GPS to get Trump, and they stripped the Fusion GPS off of the documents that they handed to the FBI … “Glenn Simpson confirms that he was directing or confirms that Glenn Simpson was directing leaks from Fusion GPS to the "Mother Jones" and other publications. You have Bruce Ohr working for the FBI and trying to set up continued communications back with Christopher Steele. “Remember, Steele had been cut off and the FBI is using Ohr to try to convince him to meet with them and they tried with him in the United Kingdom, these documents show. You have Bruce Ohr acknowledged that his wife knew that she was working on behalf of the Clinton campaign in conducting this investigation for Fusion GPS. “And the FBI -- Christopher Steele goes to Bruce Ohr, and he's worried about his business, and he is creating a proposal to work with the FBI again. And again, Bruce Ohr is the intermediary here. “The details about the State Department communication showing that Simpson was talking to a top State Department official under Obama repeatedly, Victoria Nuland. So, this is top level that the State Department working with the Clinton campaign operative on this get-Trump effort. It shows you the broad nature, unprecedented nature, secretive nature, corrupt nature, of the investigation targeting Trump that involved the FBI, the DOJ, and the State Department. “And, you know, when you look at the corruption as it is described here, because it is corruption, then you have to step back and recognize none of this was told to the FISA courts as they're authorizing spying based on this garbage, an unprecedented spy warrants targeting President Trump … “We have other documents we have uncovered from the State Department showing he was working with State Department officials to get allegations against Trump in Russia going. And, obviously, he was conflicted in six ways to Sunday because of his wife's professional relationship with Fusion GPS. “Another big point that we should mention is, Bruce Ohr confirms in these FBI reports that Steele told him he met with the McCain staffer in October of 2016 obviously about the dossier. And just before Mueller was appointed as—those meetings that the FBI was trying to set up with Steele, that's when all of that was coming into a head just days before Mueller was appointed. The FBI is desperate to meet with Christopher Steele in the United Kingdom, and you have to wonder if Mr. Mueller—and I suspect he did, as pointed out—took up the baton and began—continued his working relationship, working relationship with Fusion GPS.” Meanwhile, independent journalist Sara Carter has revealed the identity of the FBI deputy assistant director who was found to be leaking sensitive information to the media that was under court seal by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Also speaking to Hannity on Thursday night, she said: “According to my sources and according to people that I've spoken with, it was Bryan Paarmann. At the time when he leaked that information, he was head of the FBI division here, international division, operations division, at the FBI in Washington. He was transferred, actually, to New York, kind of shuffled aside by Christopher Wray and moved over to the head of counterterrorism New York and I was told just recently that it was several weeks ago that he was actually walked out of the office. He is now on leave and pending—I'm assuming—an investigation right now.” Carter said many of her FBI sources are now very upset that only four of the 14 senior-level officials identified by Horowitz to be leaking information to the media illegally have been punished. The Hill’s John Solomon also joined the “Hannity” program and noted the two men most closely related to the “Russia Narrative”—former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and former counterintelligence agent in charge Peter Strzok—are now playing the so-called “victim card.” TruNews reported earlier this week that Strzok has sued the FBI, the Justice Department, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Attorney General William Barr for wrongful termination, claiming it was the result of a White House effort to punish him for his political views. Thursday, however, McCabe filed his own lawsuit, claiming he was fired for being “disloyal” to President Trump. (Photo Credit: FOX News/YouTube) source https://trunews.com/stream/fbi-releases-bruce-ohr-302s-to-judicial-watch

#TRUNEWS - Rick Wiles

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thewebofslime · 5 years

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Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Justice Department for communications between former FBI General Counsel James Baker and Michael Sussmann, a Perkins Coie law partner and former DOJ attorney. While at Perkins Coie, Sussman represented the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s campaign during the time Perkins Coie secretly paid for the development of the anti-Trump dossier the DOJ used to obtain FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign. The lawsuit was filed after the FBI failed to respond to a FOIA request dated October 5, 2018 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-00573)). The lawsuit seeks: Any and all records of communication between former FBI General Counsel James Baker and former Department of Justice attorney and current Perkins Coie Partner Michael Sussman. Any and all records created in preparation for, during, and/or pursuant to any meeting between Mr. Baker and Mr. Sussman. Any and all calendars, agendas, or similar records, either in paper or electronic format, documenting the schedule and activities of Mr. Baker. The time frame for this request is between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2016. Perkins Coie is reportedly responsible for retaining the opposition research firm Fusion GPS in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC to dig into President Trump’s background. Fusion GPS paid British ex-spy Christopher Steele to compile the anti-Trump dossier memos, which were shared with the FBI in the summer of 2016. Judicial Watch uncovered documents revealing that during this same period of time, the FBI also paid Steele on at least 11 occasions in 2016 as a confidential informant and later continued to receive information from Steele during 2017 through a Justice Department official even after it had fired Steele in November 2016 for leaking his relationship with the FBI to the media. Confirmation of the DNC’s/Clinton campaign’s funding of the dossier, labeled by former FBI Director James Comey as “salacious and unverified,” was revealed in a memo from House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes. Baker reportedly told lawmakers in two 2018 interviews that Sussmann is the Perkins Coie attorney with whom he met in September 2016, a month before the FISA warrant was approved to spy on the Trump campaign, and that Sussmann gave him “documents and a thumb drive related to Russian interference in the election, hacking and possible Trump connections.” “This lawsuit aims to fully expose the scandalous collusion between the Obama FBI and the Clinton-DNC political operation to target Hillary Clinton’s political opponent, Donald J. Trump.” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The corrupted FBI owes Americans total transparency on this scandal.” In a related FOIA lawsuit filed against the DOJ in December 2018, Judicial Watch sued for records of all meetings in 2016 between Baker and the Perkins Coie law firm. The lawsuit cites a specific media report that Baker met with Perkins Coie lawyers to discuss allegations of collusion between Donald Trump and Russia. The meeting reportedly took place weeks before the 2016 election and before the FBI secured a controversial FISA spy warrant targeting then-candidate Trump’s campaign. Judicial Watch previously obtained heavily redacted copies of FISA warrants used by the Obama-era DOJ to spy on the Trump campaign, which seem to confirm the FBI and DOJ misled the courts in withholding the material information that Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC were behind the “intelligence” used to persuade the courts to approve the FISA warrants that targeted the Trump team. One of the FISA warrant renewals was granted in June 2017 and did not expire until September 2017, some eight months after President Trump assumed office.

#TheWebOfSlime

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go-redgirl · 6 years

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With declassification, Trump preps latest Russia probe punch By CHAD DAY and MARY CLARE JALONICK 53 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has opened a new front in his efforts to discredit the origins of the Justice Department’s Russia probe, with the White House saying he will declassify a trove of documents and publicly release text messages of former FBI officials after calls from a small group of his Republican allies in Congress to do so.

The declassification announcement came as part of Trump’s continued efforts to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe in the wake of the guilty plea of his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and amid the ongoing grand jury investigation into a longtime associate, Roger Stone. The president also made the decision as he dealt with a separate firestorm surrounding his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, and a sexual assault allegation.

It was unclear how soon the documents would be released. The White House on Monday evening announced that Trump would declassify a portion of a secret surveillance warrant application and also direct the Justice Department to release text messages and documents involving several top Justice Department and FBI officials whom he has attacked over the last year, including former FBI Director James Comey.

“Really bad things were happening, but they are now being exposed. Big stuff!” Trump tweeted Tuesday morning.

In comments later at the White House, the president said he wants “total transparency,” returning to his usual refrain that the Russia investigation is a “witch hunt.”

“The things that have been found over the last couple of weeks about text messages back and forth are a disgrace to our nation,” he said, adding: “I think it’s a good thing because we should open it up for people to see.”

The move comes after a small group of Republicans in Congress, all staunch allies of Trump, held a news conference last week asking him to declassify the documents. Democrats criticized the effort, saying the GOP lawmakers were trying to discredit the Justice Department in an effort to protect Trump from Mueller’s investigation.

Trump made a similar move in February when the White House, over the objections of the FBI and intelligence community, cleared the way for the Republican-led House intelligence committee to release a partisan memo about the surveillance warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Democrats weeks later released their own memo.

The disclosures were unprecedented given that surveillance warrants obtained from the secret court are highly classified and are not meant to be publicly disclosed, including to defendants preparing for or awaiting trial.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced Trump’s latest decision in a written statement Monday evening, saying the president had directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Justice Department to declassify the documents. Those departments have since said they have begun a declassification review of the materials.

According to the White House, Trump declassified 21 pages of the 101-page June 2017 application to renew a warrant obtained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to monitor Page’s communications in 2016.

Those pages only make up a small part of the 412 pages of FISA applications and court orders related to Page released by the FBI earlier this year in heavily redacted format.

The June 2017 application was the last of four filed by the Justice Department in support of FISA court orders allowing the monitoring of Page. His communications were monitored for nearly a year starting in October 2016.

According to the redacted version, three of the declassified pages involve information included in a section titled “The Russian Government’s Coordinated Efforts to Influence the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.” That section includes reference to potential coordination between people associated with Trump’s campaign and the Russian election interference effort.

The other 18 pages appear to relate to information the government submitted that came from former British spy Christopher Steele before the presidential election. Steele was a longtime FBI informant whose Democratic-funded research into Trump ties to Russia was compiled into a dossier that has become a partisan lightning rod since its publication in January 2017.

Besides the FISA applications pages, the president is declassifying all FBI reports documenting interviews in connection with the Page surveillance warrant and those documenting interviews with senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, who was in contact with Steele.

According to Sanders’ statement, Trump also directed the Justice Department to publicly release in full the text messages of Comey, Ohr, former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and former FBI special agent Peter Strzok that are related to the Russia investigation.

The declassification decision and order for public release of the documents was quickly praised by Trump allies in Congress and attacked by Democrats.

“Transparency wins. This is absolutely the right call from @POTUS,” said Rep. Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican, on Twitter.

Meadows, who had pushed for the documents’ release, said it will allow the American people to decide “what happened at the highest levels of their FBI and Justice Department.”

And the No. 3 Republican in the House, Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, tweeted that Trump made the right call.

“Americans deserve the truth about these egregious actions by government officials,” Scalise said.

But Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, called Trump’s decision a “clear abuse of power” intended to advance a “false narrative” to help in his defense from Mueller’s probe.

Schiff said the FBI and the Justice Department had said releasing the documents would cross a “red line” because doing so would compromise sources and methods.

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland and Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, the ranking Democrats on the House Oversight and Judiciary committees, said in a statement that Trump’s actions were a “direct and frantic response” to Manafort’s recent guilty plea and cooperation agreement with Mueller.

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Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Eric Tucker and Deb Riechm

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totalconservative · 6 years

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New Post has been published on Total Conservative News

New Post has been published on http://totalconservative.com/fisa-court-never-held-a-single-hearing-on-carter-page-warrants/

FISA Court Never Held a Single Hearing on Carter Page Warrants

Thanks to the intrepid journalism of Judicial Watch, we now know that the FISA court, which should be one of the most deliberative, cautious legal bodies in America, never held a single hearing about the Justice Department’s request for a foreign surveillance warrant against Carter Page, who was and is an American citizen. The warrants, which have come under intense scrutiny after it was revealed that the FBI intentionally downplayed the political origins of their main evidence – the Steele dossier – were apparently just rubber-stamped by the court with little or no debate.

From Judicial Watch:

In the filing the Justice Department finally revealed that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Page FISA spy warrants, first issued in 2016 and subsequently renewed three times:

[National Security Division] FOIA consulted [Office of Intelligence] … to identify and locate records responsive to [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request…. [Office of Intelligence] determined … that there were no records, electronic or paper, responsive to [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request with regard to Carter Page. [Office of Intelligence] further confirmed that the [Foreign Surveillance Court] considered the Page warrant applications based upon written submissions and did not hold any hearings.

The Department of Justice previously released to Judicial Watch the heavily redacted Page warrant applications. The initial Page FISA warrant was granted just weeks before the 2016 election.

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said that Americans should be disturbed at the lack of due process that led to the FBI spying on a citizen.

“It is disturbing that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance courts rubber-stamped the Carter Page spy warrants and held not one hearing on these extraordinary requests to spy on the Trump team,” said Fitton. “Perhaps the court can now hold hearings on how justice was corrupted by material omissions that Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the DNC, a conflicted Bruce Ohr, a compromised Christopher Steele, and anti-Trumper Peter Strzok were all behind the ‘intelligence’ used to persuade the courts to approve the FISA warrants that targeted the Trump team.”

Well, that would require there to be someone in charge of the Justice Department actually interested in following up on these scandals. Unfortunately, with Jeff Sessions recused and Rod Rosenstein taking an adversarial position against all things Republican, this is unlikely to transpire. The Democrats/Obama administration are well on their way to getting away with the scandal of the century, simply because the people inside the DOJ are more interested in covering for their friends than they are in getting to the truth.

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opedguy · 6 years

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Christopher Steele Worked for FBI

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), Aug. 8, 2018.--New heavily redacted documents released by the FBI to Tom Fitton’s Judicial Watch indicate that the author of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s opposition research against President Donald Trump, Christopher Steele, worked for the FBI. When former FBI Director James Comey testified before June 8, 2017, one day before he was fired by Trump, he refused to say whether or not former British MI6 agent Christopher Steele worked for the FBI. Democrats and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s worst nightmare involves proof that the FBI began secretly wiretapping Trump months before the November 8, 2016 presidential election. Democrats and their friends in the press want no part of the very real possibility that former President Barack Obama asked former Department of Justice [DOJ] chief Loretta Lynch to ask Comey to investigate Trump for alleged ties to the Kremlin.

What’s so extraordinary about the recently released documents is that it shows that Steele, who constructed Hillary’s opposition research against Trump AKA “the dossier,” worked as a Confidential Human Source [CHS] for the FBI before working for Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm paid by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary campaign. When the FBI determined that Steele was the source of an online article, they terminated his consulting relationship with the FBI. On Nov. 1, 2016, only one week before the presidential election, the FBI terminated its consulting relationship with Steele. As early as February 2016, the FBI “admonished” Steele, believing he was out-of-compliance with FBI policy for a CHS. While the heavily redacted documents don’t show when the FBI started paying Steele, it clear that Steel was out-of-compliance with FBI policy.

Redacted documents don’t show when Steele was first placed on the FBI payroll to investigate Trump, only well before the Nov. 8, 2016 presidential election. Steele once worked for the FBI in its probe of international soccer. When Comey began paying Steele is anyone’s guess. Once Trump won the GOP nomination May 26, 2016, it’s possible that Hillary’s campaign made the request to Obama to use the national security apparatus to wiretap Trump and his campaign associates. When Trump said that Obama “tapped his wires” May 4, 2017, the press went wild, demanding proof. Funny how the press demands no proof of whether or not Obama ordered Trump wiretapped to help Hillary’s chances in November 2016. What’s known today is that the FBI reached a deal with Steele in October 2016 for “the dossier,” in addition to taking cash from Fusion GPS to complete the disparaging Trump dossier.

No Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees want to hear the truth that Trump was investigated not because certain members of his campaign staff had known ties to the Kremlin but because it helped Hillary win the election. Knowing that Steele worked for the FBI months before the 2016 election raises real concerns about the extent to which it’s suppressing Comey’s role in wiretapping the Trump campaign. Comey passed over Steele’s involvement in the dossier as inconsequential, never admitting he was actually on the FBI’s payroll. House Intelligence Committee Co-Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) insists that there’s plenty of evidence on Trump collusion in the 2016. Schiff won’t admit that the FBI had zero justification for wiretapping Trump or his campaign associates. No one in the Trump campaign has been charged with ties to the Kremlin.

Schiff makes a big deal over the FBI’s used of “the dossier” and other relevant sources of intel to justify getting warrants at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act {FISA] court of wiretap former Trump foreign policy aid Carrter Page. But if Page were guilty, as Schiff suggests, why was he not charged with anything? It’s because the charges against Page were bogus, looking to do anything possible to discredit the Trump campaign. Washington Post reported that the FBI reached a deal with Steele to continue investigating Trump in Oct. 2016, suggesting “the dossier’s” allegations of Trump ties to the Kremlin were credible. It’s still unclear whether or not Steele was fired by the FBI or he quit on his own, to work exclusively with Glen Simpson’s Fusion GPS opposition research firm. What’s most ironic, with Trump’s alleged Russian collusion, that Steele sought information against Trump from Kremlin sources.

Working for the FBI and Fusion GPS, Steele pulled all his Russian resources to get all the dirt on Trump, alleging he worked with the Kremlin to get elected president. With new declassified docs showing that Steele was on the FBI’s payroll as a Confidential Human Source investigating Trump, it’s now clear that former President Barack Obama ordered his former Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch to ask Comey to investigate Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign. While Democrats and the press want the public to believe the FBI had good reason to investigate Trump and his campaign associations, it looks more like Hillary needed all the help she could get to guarantee victory Nov. 8, 2016. When that all backfired, Democrats and the press continued the bogus Russian narrative against Trump to cover-up Obama’s devious way to help Hillary win the 2016 election.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma

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investmart007 · 6 years

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WASHINGTON | After a week of walkbacks, Trump returns to Russia doubting

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/jaFHJw

WASHINGTON | After a week of walkbacks, Trump returns to Russia doubting

WASHINGTON — Capping a week of drama, back tracking, a double negative and blistering statements from allies about his attitude toward Russian election interference, President Donald Trump on Sunday was back to referring to “a big hoax.”

Trump spent days trying to reassure the country that he accepts that the longtime foe interfered in the 2016 election after his public undermining of U.S. intelligence agencies in Helsinki while standing alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin. But Trump cast doubt once again in a Sunday tweet, diminishing at least the significance, if not the existence, of the interference and the U.S. investigation into Russia’s actions.

“So President Obama knew about Russia before the Election,” Trump tweeted. “Why didn’t he do something about it? Why didn’t he tell our campaign? Because it is all a big hoax, that’s why, and he thought Crooked Hillary was going to win!!!”

It was not immediately clear whether Trump was suggesting that the entire notion of Russian interference — U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously concur it took place and Trump reluctantly accepted their assessment amid the firestorm — was fraudulent, or just the investigation of potential collusion by Trump associates with Russian agents.

Either way, it appeared to keep alive a controversy that had separated Trump from aides and longtime political supporters and brought some of the most striking rebukes of his tenure in the Oval Office.

“The evidence is overwhelming and the president needs to say that and act like it,” said Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, in an interview with “Fox News Sunday” aired hours before Trump’s tweet.

Two Trump associates, former national security adviser Mike Flynn and campaign foreign policy aide George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty last year to charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller alleging they had lied to the FBI about their Russia contacts.

Trump’s latest missive came hours after he asserted without evidence that newly released documents relating to the wiretapping of his onetime campaign adviser Carter Page “confirm with little doubt” that intelligence agencies misled the court that approved the warrant.

But lawmakers from both political parties said that the documents don’t show wrongdoing and that they even appear to undermine some previous claims by top Republicans on the basis for obtaining a warrant against Page.

Visible portions of the heavily redacted documents, released Saturday under the Freedom of Information Act, show the FBI telling the court that Page “has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian government.” The agency also told the court that “the FBI believes Page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian government.”

The documents were part of officials’ application for a warrant to the secretive foreign intelligence surveillance court, which signed off on surveilling Page.

Trump tweeted Sunday on the documents: “As usual they are ridiculously heavily redacted but confirm with little doubt that the Department of ‘Justice’ and FBI misled the courts. Witch Hunt Rigged, a Scam!”

The release appears to undercut some of the contentions in a memo prepared by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes earlier this year. Nunes, R-Calif., and other Republicans had said that anti-Trump research in a dossier prepared by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele and paid for by Democrats was used inappropriately to obtain the warrant on Page.

While the documents confirm that the FBI relied, in part, on information from Steele to obtain the initial warrant, they also show how the FBI informed the court of his likely motivation.

A page-long footnote in the warrant application lays out the FBI’s assessment of Steele’s history and the likely interest of his backer, adding that despite the political concern, the bureau believed at least some of his report to be “credible.”

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, a ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, said the documents detail “just why the FBI was so concerned that Carter Page might be acting as an agent of a foreign power.”

“It was a solid application and renewals signed by four different judges appointed by three different Republican presidents,” Schiff said on ABC’s “This Week.”

In a statement late Sunday, Nunes said the documents supported his committee’s view “that unverified information from the Steele dossier formed an essential part of all the FISA applications on Carter Page. It proves that the FBI used outright political propaganda to spy on an American citizen during the election.”

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida also broke with Trump, saying he didn’t think the FBI did anything wrong in obtaining warrants against Page.

“I have a different view on this issue than the president and the White House,” Rubio said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” ”They did not spy on the campaign from anything and everything that I have seen. You have an individual here who has openly bragged about his ties to Russia and Russians.”

On Sunday, Page said on CNN‘s “State of the Union”: “I’ve never been the agent of a foreign power.”

In a 2013 letter, Page had described himself as an “informal adviser’ to the Kremlin but now said “it’s really spin” to call him an adviser.

Page has not been charged with a crime, but he has been interviewed by the FBI and congressional investigators about his ties to Russia. White House officials have argued that Page, announced by the president in early 2016 as a foreign policy adviser, played only a minor role in the Trump campaign.

The documents released Saturday include the FBI’s October 2016 request to surveil Page and several renewal applications. It marks the first time in the more than 40-year history of the highly secretive court that underlying documents for a warrant have been released.

By ZEKE MILLER, Associated Press

#After a week of walkbacks #CNN #Face the Nation #FBI #Freedom of Information Act #House Oversight Committee #TodayNews #Trump returns to Russia doubting #U.S. intelligence agencies #Vladimir Putin #Washington

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alamante · 6 years

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Image copyright EPA

Image caption Carter Page was put under surveillance in October 2016

One of Donald Trump’s ex-foreign policy aides says allegations that he worked with the Russian government during the 2016 US election are “over the top”.

The FBI believed Carter Page was “collaborating and conspiring with the Russian government” at that time.

Mr Page’s relationships with Russian intelligence officials are highlighted in court applications which led to him being put under surveillance.

Mr Trump said it appeared that his campaign was illegally spied on.

However, several different judges sitting on a high-security court granted and renewed the surveillance applications.

The court, established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa), has the power to approve wiretaps and electronic monitoring in connection with suspected terrorism or espionage by foreign powers.

What was released?

The FBI released the previously secret document cache on Saturday night following Freedom of Information requests by several US organisations.

It contains 412 pages of heavily redacted material which includes the surveillance applications, their later renewals, and warrants surrounding the investigation into Mr Page.

“The FBI believes that Page has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian government,” the October 2016 application to the court states.

According to the documents, “the FBI believes that the Russian government’s efforts are being co-ordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with” Mr Trump’s presidential campaign.

It also said Mr Page “has established relationships with Russian government officials, including Russian intelligence officers”.

Image copyright EPA

Image caption Donald Trump said the documents “confirm the Department of ‘Justice’ and FBI misled the courts”

Mr Page told The Hill he was “having trouble finding any small bit of this document that rises above complete ignorance and/or insanity”.

Speaking on CNN on Sunday, he described the allegations as “so ridiculous”.

He said: “You talk about misleading the courts, it’s just so misleading. It’s literally a complete joke.”

He strongly denied he had worked for the Kremlin and described as “spin” accusations that he had advised Moscow.

“No, I’ve never been an agent of a foreign power by any stretch of the imagination,” he said.

“I may have, back in the G20 when they were getting ready to do that in St Petersburg, I might have participated in a few meetings that a lot of people – including people from the Obama administration – were sitting on, and Geneva, Paris, et cetera, but I’ve never been anywhere near what’s being described here.”

Who is Carter Page?

Mr Page is an energy industry consultant with longstanding ties to Russia. He first reached out to the Trump campaign in 2015 before meeting Mr Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, in January 2016.

By March 2016, Mr Trump had identified Mr Page as one of a handful of campaign foreign policy advisers.

However, after allegations emerged in a dossier put together by a former British spy that he had served as an intermediary between Russian officials and the president’s campaign as they worked to advance Mr Trump’s presidential efforts, Mr Page resigned from his role. He denied all the allegations against him.

Read more: Carter Page has a story that doesn’t always add up

What did Mr Trump say?

The president took to Twitter to welcome the release of the documents and accuse the Department of Justice and the FBI of breaking the law to mislead the courts and spy on his campaign – to benefit his Democratic opponent in the election, Hillary Clinton.

Skip Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump

Congratulations to @JudicialWatch and @TomFitton on being successful in getting the Carter Page FISA documents. As usual they are ridiculously heavily redacted but confirm with little doubt that the Department of “Justice” and FBI misled the courts. Witch Hunt Rigged, a Scam!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2018

End of Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump

Skip Twitter post 2 by @realDonaldTrump

Looking more & more like the Trump Campaign for President was illegally being spied upon (surveillance) for the political gain of Crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC. Ask her how that worked out – she did better with Crazy Bernie. Republicans must get tough now. An illegal Scam!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2018

End of Twitter post 2 by @realDonaldTrump

The leader of the Democratic Party in the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, came to a different conclusion.

In a statement, she said: “Despite President Trump’s repeated claims, these documents provide clear evidence of ‘Russia’s co-ordination with Carter Page’, a high-ranking Trump campaign official, ‘to undermine and improperly and illegally influence the 2016 US presidential election’.”

She added: “The GOP [Republican Party] must cease their attacks on our law enforcement and intelligence communities, and finally decide where their loyalty lies.”

How does this fit into the wider picture?

The documents’ release comes nine days after 12 Russians were charged with hacking Democratic officials in the 2016 US elections.

The charges form part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into US intelligence findings that Russians conspired to tilt the election in Mr Trump’s favour, and whether any of his campaign aides colluded. Mr Trump has labelled the investigation a “witch hunt”.

So far, the inquiry has indicted 32 people – mostly Russian nationals in absentia, but also three companies and four former Trump advisers.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionTrump on Putin: “As the leader of a country, you would have to hold him responsible, yes”

Just days later, Mr Trump met his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, at a summit in Helsinki and was asked by reporters whether he believed Russia had meddled in the 2016 election,

“President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be,” he replied, appearing to back the Russians over his own agencies.

Will Helsinki change the course of Trump’s presidency?

The next day, following widespread outrage, he read a pre-prepared statement, saying he actually meant “wouldn’t”.

On Thursday, the White House announced it had invited Mr Putin to Washington in October.

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mariowil · 6 years

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hese documents are heavily redacted but seem to confirm the FBI and DOJ misled the courts in withholding the material information that Hillary Clinton's campaign and the DNC were behind the "intelligence" used to persuade the courts to approve the FISA warrants that targeted the Trump team. Given this corruption, President Trump should intervene and declassify the heavily redacted material.

The documents were due to Judicial Watch yesterday but were emailed around 5:30 pm today.

The warrants are controversial because the FISA court was never told that the key information justifying the requests came from a "dossier" that was created by Fusion GPS, a paid agent of the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee. The initial Carter Page warrant was granted just weeks before the 2016 election. Today's document release supports criticisms by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee who released a

memo

that criticized the FISA targeting. The memo details how the "minimally corroborated" Clinton-DNC dossier was an essential part of the FBI and DOJ's applications for surveillance warrants to spy on Page.

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trendingnewsb · 7 years

Text

Dems’ rebuttal to GOP FISA memo is released; Trump deems it a ‘bust’

Video

Democrats’ FISA memo released by House Intel Committee

Democrats’ response to the Republicans’ memo regarding possible FISA abuses is released with redactions; Catherine Herridge discusses initial takeaways from the document.

President Trump on Saturday dismissed a Democratic rebuttal to the GOP memo outlining government surveillance abuses in the 2016 campaign as a “total political and legal bust,” claiming that it only confirms the ”terrible things” that were done by the nation’s intelligence agencies.

The rebuttal, written by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, concluded that officials at the FBI and Justice Department “did not abuse the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign.”

Democrats sought to counter claims made in a Republican memo released this month that the FBI and DOJ relied on a Democrat-funded anti-Trump dossier to ask the FISA court for a warrant to monitor Trump adviser Carter Page.

Democrats have vehemently claimed that the Republican memo left out important information.

The Democrat memo response on government surveillance abuses is a total political and legal BUST. Just confirms all of the terrible things that were done. SO ILLEGAL!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2018

But Trump was unimpressed by the 10-page memo that resulted.

Wrong again, Mr. President. It confirms the FBI acted appropriately and that Russian agents approached two of your advisors, and informed your campaign that Russia was prepared to help you by disseminating stolen Clinton emails. https://t.co/G128SNicdn

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) February 24, 2018

Ranking Democrat Adam Schiff, D-Calif., countered by saying it confirmed that intelligence officials acted appropriately.

Democratic rebuttal to GOP FISA memo by Fox News on Scribd

Republicans had found that the DOJ and FBI left out Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign funding of the dossier, as well as the anti-Trump motivations of author and former British spy Christopher Steele, in its request for a warrant. Indeed, Republicans have pointed to this as proof that intelligence agencies abused surveillance powers.

Video

Democratic memo: Sources corroborated Steele’s reporting

The Democratic rebuttal, though it did not directly challenge some of the key findings of the earlier one from Republicans, backed the FBI and DOJ in their pursuit of that FISA warrant to surveil Page.

“In fact, DOJ and the FBI would have been remiss in their duty to protect the country had they not sought a FISA warrant and repeated renewals to conduct temporary surveillance of Carter Page, someone the FBI assessed to be an agent of the Russian government,” the rebuttal said, adding that the DOJ met the “rigor, transparency, and evidentiary basis” needed to meet FISA’s probable-cause requirement.

Video

Nunes speaks at CPAC about investigating use of FISA court

The memo said the Page surveillance warrant produced intelligence deemed reliable, and sufficient to justify renewals every 90 days.

The rebuttal said the FBI had an “independent basis” for investigating Page’s motivations, and that he had been targeted for recruitment by the Russians. It also claimed that the DOJ “repeatedly informed the Court about Steele’s background, credibility, and potential bias.” And it maintained that the Justice Department infomed the FISA court that Steele had been hired by “politically motivated U.S. persons and entities and that his research appeared intended for use “to discredit” Trump’s campaign.

The rebuttal added that the DOJ only made “narrow use” of information from Steele’s sources and that in later FISA renewals the DOJ provided “additional information obtained through multiple independent sources” that backed up Steele’s reporting. It challenged the Republican assertion that the FBI authorized payment to Steele, saying that it neglected that the payment was canceled.

The memo, however, did not directly challenge the Republican assertion that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe testified to the House Committee that they would not have sought the Page surveillance warrant had it not been for that infamous dossier.

The new memo also asserted that the dossier had been corroborated by multiple sources. However, in June 2017 testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, former FBI Director James Comey said the opposite — that three months after the warrant on Page had been granted he still considered the dossier “unverified” and “salacious” when he briefed incoming President Trump in January 2017 at Trump Tower.

The rebuttal was voted out of committee earlier this month but a redraft was ordered after the White House demanded that sensitive information be stripped out before the document be made public. The Justice Department and FBI claimed the initial draft would reveal information about sources and methods, ongoing investigations and other sensitive information.

Schiff said the minority’s memo should “put to rest” any concerns about conduct by the intelligence agencies.

Video

Tarlov Responds to Democrat FISA Memo

READ THE GOP MEMO

His confidence notwithstanding, it seemed unlikely to mark an end to the ongoing fight over the FISA application and the role of that infamous dossier. Indeed, while the two parties clash over whether that dossier was a primary or secondary driver of the surveillance application, the newly declassified criminal referral for Christopher Steele from Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said the FBI and DOJ relied “heavily” on the controversial and salacious document for the FISA application.

And upon the new memo’s release, Republicans on the intel committee responded with rebuttals to the rebuttal, providing more evidence that this battle has legs. For instance, while the Democrats say that the court was given information about the political motivations of Steele, Republicans say that such a statement is “buried in a footnote” that obscures rather than clarifies his motives.

“The American people now clearly understand that the FBI used political dirt paid for by the Democratic Party to spy on an American citizen from the Republican Party,” Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif. said in a statement.

“Furthermore, the FISA court was misled about Mr. Page’s past interactions with the FBI in which he helped build a case against Russian operatives in America who were brought to justice. It defies belief that the Department of Justice and FBI failed to provide information to a secret court that they had provided to an open federal court regarding their past interactions with Mr. Page,” he said.

The White House called the rebuttal a “politically driven document” that fails to answer the concerns raised by the Republican memo.

Dem Memo: FBI did not disclose who the clients were – the Clinton Campaign and the DNC. Wow!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2018

“As the Majority’s memorandum stated, the FISA judge was never informed that Hillary Clinton and the DNC funded the dossier that was a basis for the Department of Justice’s FISA application,” Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

“In addition, the Minority’s memo fails to even address the fact that the Deputy FBI Director told the Committee that had it not been for the dossier, no surveillance order would have been sought,” she added.

Democrats have claimed that the original Republican memo was an effort to attack FBI Director Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian interference in 2016. Trump had previously said that the memo “totally vindicates” him in the investigation.

Fox News’ Catherine Herridge, Jennifer Bowman and Jason Donner contributed to this report.

Adam Shaw is a Politics Reporter and occasional Opinion writer for FoxNews.com. He can be reached here or on Twitter: @AdamShawNY.

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Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/02/24/dems-rebuttal-to-gop-fisa-memo-is-released-trump-deems-it-bust.html

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trunewsofficial · 5 years

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Is the ‘Russia Narrative’ Finally and Completely Unraveling?

The walls are closing in on those who were involved in the FBI’s and Justice Department’s spying on President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. Judicial Watch has dropped a new bombshell on the “Russia Narrative” coup against the president, claiming that Fusion GPS employee Nellie Ohr admitted to destroying evidence to her husband, then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr. She makes the admission in an email to her husband dated April 20, 2016, in which she said: “Thanks! I’m deleting these emails now.” The Judicial Watch announcement further states: “The full email exchange is between Bruce Ohr, Lisa Holtyn, Nellie Ohr, and Stefan Bress, a first secretary at the German Embassy, and is part of 339 pages of heavily redacted records from the U.S. Department of Justice ... “Nellie Ohr’s email has the same subject line as an email exchange with the subject line ‘Analyst Russian Organized Crime – April 2016’ in which Bress initiates a discussion with Bruce Ohr and his top aide, Lisa Holtyn, proffering some ‘Russian analysts’ to discuss a variety of topics with Ohr, Holtyn, and other DOJ officials. Among those topics to be discussed is ‘Impact of Russian influence operations in Europe (“PsyOps/InfoWar”).’ “Holtyn responds with, ‘I haven’t had a chance to confer with Bruce yet, but would certainly love to meet with the “A Team”!’ Bruce Ohr then says, ‘That time works for me as well.’ Bress then provides the personal details/passport numbers of the German analysts who will be meeting with Holtyn and Ohr. Holtyn tells Bress that the Ohr’s would like to host the German delegation for dinner and notes that Joe Wheatley and Ivana Nizich (a husband/wife team of DOJ Organized Crime prosecutors and friends of the Ohr’s) would join them as well. “Until he was demoted for his connection to the anti-Trump dossier, Bruce Ohr was a top official at DOJ. A House Intelligence Committee memo released by Chairman Devin Nunes said that Nellie Ohr was ‘employed by Fusion GPS to assist in the cultivation of opposition research on Trump’ and that Bruce Ohr passed the results of that research, which was paid for by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign, to the FBI. The ‘salacious and unverified’ Dossier was used to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance warrant to spy on Carter Page. “These documents are part of Nellie Ohr’s and the DOJ’s communications about Russia. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) recently wrote up a criminal referral concerning her testimony before Congress that she had no knowledge of what was going on during the Russia investigation at DOJ.” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the email is “disturbing” because it suggests volumes of documents relevant to the coup against the president have been destroyed. He also noted the documents received by his organization reveal that Bruce Ohr remained in regular contact with former British spy and Fusion GPS contractor Christopher Steele long after his contract with the FBI as a confidential informant was terminated for leaking information to the mainstream media. Attorney General Bill Barr is still pushing forward with his “investigation of the investigation,” declaring the American public needs to know “exactly what happened.” He told FOX News Channel’s Bill Hemmer: “I have been trying to get answers to questions, and I found that a lot of the answers have been inadequate. And I have also found that some of the explanations I have gotten don’t hang together. So, in a sense I have more questions today than did I when I first started … “I think people have to find out what the government was doing during that period. If we’re worried about foreign influence, for the very same reason we should be worried about whether government officials abused their power and put their thumb on the scale. And so I’m not saying that happened, but I’m saying that we have to look at that that.” Barr was in El Salvador for meetings with law enforcement officials. And during that interview he fired back at Democrats who have hammered him over his handling of the Special Counsel’s report. He said it was “laughable” that Speaker Nancy Pelosi's accused him of lying to Congress, adding: “I have to say, you know, when you step back and look at this, 2 1/2 years of this administration, three years of Trump campaign and the first part of his administration, he has been hammered for something — for allegedly conspiring with the Russians. We now know that was simply false … “I use what words I use, and it was an investigation. But I think if I had been falsely accused, I would be comfortable saying it was a witch hunt.” President Trump isn’t using the phrase “witch hunt” anymore. He’s taken to a much stronger term to describe the Russia-collusion investigation. After the AG’s interview... the president tweeted: “My Campaign for President was conclusively spied on. Nothing like this has ever happened in American Politics. A really bad situation. TREASON means long jail sentences, and this was TREASON!” The president also railed against House Democrats for failing to investigate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s attempts to hide 33,000 emails. He also slammed the fact he’s only just now learning through the media that his former national security adviser, General Mike Flynn, was under investigation much earlier than previously known. And now it looks like the rats are jumping from the ship. A new report says former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan are pointing fingers at each other over who pushed to use the Steele dossier to launch the FBI/DOJ investigation of the Trump 2016 campaign. (Photo Credit: U.S. Justice Department) source https://trunews.com/stream/is-the-russia-narrative-finally-and-completely-unraveling

#TRUNEWS - Rick Wiles

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thewebofslime · 5 years

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‘[N]o such hearings were held with respect to the acknowledged FISA applications. Accordingly, no responsive hearing transcripts exist.’ (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today announced that in response to a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the Justice Department (DOJ) admitted in a court filing last night that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) spy warrant applications targeting Carter Page, a former Trump campaign part-time advisor who was the subject of four controversial FISA warrants. In the filing the Justice Department finally revealed that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Page FISA spy warrants, first issued in 2016 and subsequently renewed three times: [National Security Division] FOIA consulted [Office of Intelligence] … to identify and locate records responsive to [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request…. [Office of Intelligence] determined … that there were no records, electronic or paper, responsive to [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request with regard to Carter Page. [Office of Intelligence] further confirmed that the [Foreign Surveillance Court] considered the Page warrant applications based upon written submissions and did not hold any hearings. The Department of Justice previously released to Judicial Watch the heavily redacted Page warrant applications. The initial Page FISA warrant was granted just weeks before the 2016 election. The DOJ filing is in response to a Judicial Watch lawsuit for the FISA transcripts (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-01050)). In February, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released a memo criticizing the FISA targeting of Carter Page. The memo details how the “minimally corroborated” Clinton-DNC dossier was an essential part of the FBI and DOJ’s applications for surveillance warrants to spy on Page. Judicial Watch recently filed a request with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court seeking the transcripts of all hearings related to the surveillance of Carter Page. “It is disturbing that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance courts rubber-stamped the Carter Page spy warrants and held not one hearing on these extraordinary requests to spy on the Trump team,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Perhaps the court can now hold hearings on how justice was corrupted by material omissions that Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the DNC, a conflicted Bruce Ohr, a compromised Christopher Steele, and anti-Trumper Peter Strzok were all behind the ‘intelligence’ used to persuade the courts to approve the FISA warrants that targeted the Trump team.”

#TheWebOfSlime

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alamante · 6 years

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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said on Sunday he doesn’t believe the FBI “spied” on President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, as Trump and his allies have repeatedly claimed.

Rubio disputed Trump’s characterization during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, saying that FBI investigators were justified in their October 2016 wiretapping of Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser. The agents, it has been learned, had reason to believe Russia had sought to recruit Page as part of the scheme to subvert the presidential election.

“I don’t think they did anything wrong,” Rubio said of the FBI efforts. “I think they went to the court. They got the judges to approve it. They laid out all the information ― and there was a lot of reasons… for why they wanted to look at Carter Page.”

GOP Sen. Marco Rubio: “I don’t think (the FBI) did anything wrong” in surveilling Carter Page #CNNSOTU https://t.co/MrajUTxcrD https://t.co/IaD9yNazFV

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 22, 2018

The Justice Department released a trove of documents on Saturday that included the FBI’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant applications to surveil Page.

“The FBI believes Page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian government… to undermine and influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election in violation of U.S. criminal law,” according to the documents.

Page has repeatedly denied being a Russian agent. Appearing on Tapper’s “State of the Union” program before Rubio, he said he had once served as an “informal” adviser to the Kremlin, but that it was “totally unreasonable” to say he may have been unwittingly working with Russians during the ’16 campaign.

In a series of tweets Sunday, Trump claimed the previously classified documents showed the FBI “misled the courts” and that his campaign “was illegally being spied upon.”

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2018

Andrew McCarthy – “I said this could never happen. This is so bad that they should be looking at the judges who signed off on this stuff, not just the people who gave it. It is so bad it screams out at you.” On the whole FISA scam which led to the rigged Mueller Witch Hunt!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2018

But Rubio, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, steadfastly disagreed with Trump on the FBI’s FISA warrants and surveillance of Page.

“I have a different view on this issue than the president and the White House,” he said on CBS’ “Face The Nation,” also on Sunday. “They did not spy on the campaign from anything and everything that I have seen. You have an individual here [Page] who has openly bragged about his ties to Russia and Russians.”

“Yes, they were looking into this one individual ― but an individual the campaign themselves said was not a big part of their efforts,” he continued. “Therefore I wouldn’t consider that spying on a campaign.”

The @FBI had many reasons to look into this guy. And looking into him is not “spying” on Trump campaign, because as the White House made clear last year, he was “not an ‘advisor’ to Mr. Trump in any sense of the word.” https://t.co/rhRUB87OVa

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) July 22, 2018

Rubio was among the many Republicans that Trump defeated in the race for the party’s presidential nomination two years ago.

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alamante · 6 years

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In the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election, the FBI believed that Carter Page, a campaign adviser to Donald Trump, was “conspiring and collaborating with the Russian government,” according to startling wiretap warrant applications released Saturday by the Justice Department.

The 412 pages of documents, including an initial wiretap warrant application and three follow-up renewals, were heavily redacted. But they included damning passages concerning Page, who served for a time as a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign.

The FBI also believed that “Page has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian government,” the document says, adding that “there is probable cause that such activities involve or are about to involve violations of the criminal statutes of the United States.”

Other sections noted that Page “has established relationships with Russian government officials, including Russian intelligence officers,” and that the FBI believed “the Russian government’s efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with” Trump’s campaign.

The formerly classified Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant applications were released after advocacy groups and news organizations, including The New York Times and USA Today, sued for disclosure. The FBI obtained its first wiretap warrant for Page in 2016.

Republicans have denounced the FISA documents as evidence of abuse by the FBI and Justice Department targeting the Trump campaign. Critics of special counsel Robert Mueller claim the FISA warrant was spurred solely by the dossier gathered by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele that was paid for by Democrats as part of Trump opposition research.

Democrats have argued that the FBI had its own concerning information about Page’s possible campaign collusion with the Russians. Page boasted in a letter three years before the Steele dossier that he was a “Kremlin adviser.”

The FBI told the FISA court it was aware that the person who hired Steele wanted to discredit Trump, but said Steele had in the past “provided reliable information.” Few details about other sources of intelligence on Page were available in the unredacted portions of text.

Page, who has previously denied colluding with Russia, could not immediately be reached for comment. He tweeted on Saturday about “civil rights abuses” that he claimed were revealed in the documents, and said he plans to appear on CNN Sunday to discuss them.

Even more shocking than the civil rights abuses inherent in today’s initial FISA abuse documents and its testament to @Comey & Co’s very poor “legal” judgment is the complete ignorance it shows regarding Russia. Will discuss with @jaketapper on @CNNSotu: https://t.co/Oy5WlcYyE8

— Carter Page, Ph.D. (@carterwpage) July 21, 2018

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