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New FBI messages reveal agents sought way to evade federal record requirements
The Hill dot com ^ | Feb 1, 2018 | Sharyl Attkisson

Posted on 02/01/2018 11:30:12 AM PST by Zuben Elgenubi

There’s an important but little-noticed subtext in the revelations about alleged FBI misconduct in the investigations into Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonDavis: ‘Deep state’ existed in ’16 – but it elected Trump Former Trump legal spokesman to testify to Mueller about undisclosed call: report WSJ: Agents' texts reveal McCabe knew of Clinton emails for at least a month MORE’s email practices and Donald TrumpDonald John TrumpSchiff: Nunes gave Trump 'secretly altered' version of memo Davis: ‘Deep state’ existed in ’16 – but it elected Trump Former Trump legal spokesman to testify to Mueller about undisclosed call: report MORE’s Russia associations. 

 
It’s the light they shine on what has come to be routine obstruction of public records laws by federal officials.
 
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The records that federal agencies generate while in our employ aren’t owned by faceless bureaucrats or political officials who can choose to withhold or disclose at their discretion and convenience. The records are owned by us: the public.

 
That includes text messages.
 
In the past two decades as communications via email, smart phones and social media have grown routine, there’s evidence that federal officials have consciously devised ways to thwart public records laws and keep their communications — our records — secret. Federal officials have used private email accounts, private servers and aliases (not their own name) for public business. They have deleted or lost messages that are supposed to be saved. 
 
And they have learned to use text messaging.

In a new exchange released by the Senate Homeland Security committee today, FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok seem to discuss this very issue in private texts.
Page: Have a meeting with turgal about getting iphone in a day or so
 
Strzok: Oh hot damn. . . We get around our security/monitoring issues?
 
Page: No, he’s proposing that we just stop following them.  Apparently the requirement to capture texts came from [Office of Management and Budget], but we’re the only org (I’m told) who is following that rule.  His point is, if no one else is doing it why should we. . .  I’m told – thought I have seen – that there is an IG report that says everyone is failing.  But one has changed anything, so why not just join in the failure.
It’s a shockingly cavalier attitude from an attorney and high level FBI official. 
 
There are more text messages between Strzok and Page from a critical time period, as we now know, that the FBI claimed had been lost in a technical glitch. After that became public, the Inspector General said he was able to recover them. (Interesting that the FBI couldn’t.)
 
Where are all those text messages now? Instead of providing them directly to Congress, the Inspector General is giving the recovered text messages to the Department of Justice which then can give them to Congress (after any bad actors theoretically implicated in the texts have time to mount a fulsome defense).
 
This is just one artery of a huge problem that also includes federal agencies routinely violating Freedom of Information Act law. They’ve twisted the law on its head, using it to obstruct and delay the release of obviously public information. They filter legitimate public records through political reviews before releasing them in a process that isn’t, in my view, allowed under Freedom of Information law. 
 
Documents released years after they should have been, when the news related to them had died down, reveal that during the Department of Justice’s Fast and Furious scandal—where federal agents were instructed to allow thousands of weapons to be trafficked to Mexican drug cartels—public records officials were told to forward any Freedom of Information Act requests that I made to a special tasker under the guise of “coordination.” 
 
“Recently requests have been made to multiple components for certain records pertaining to Project Gunrunner, an ATF initiative,” a Department of Justice information official wrote to various agencies and officials on May 20, 2011, including DEA, the Attorney General’s office, the Marshal’s Service, the FBI and the Inspector General. “You should contact me directly before proceeding, and as soon as possible…Similarly, you should contact me if you receive a request from Sharyl Attkisson.” 
 
Indeed, this process ensured that I did not receive lawful responses to Freedom of Information requests on Fast and Furious.
 
This sort of toying with public records is, in my view, one of the worst modern violations of the public trust by our government. The newly-released text messages further that view, but there appears to be no serious effort to remedy it.
 
Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) is an Emmy-award winning investigative journalist, author of The New York Times bestsellers “The Smear” and “Stonewalled,” and host of Sinclair’s Sunday TV program “Full Measure.”


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Government; US: California
KEYWORDS: andrewmccabe; attkisson; california; christopherwray; devinnunes; fbi; fisa; jamescomey; lisapage; perjury; peterstrzok; robertmueller; rodrosenstein; steeledossier; strzoktexts; strzoktextsevasion; texts
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"This is just one artery of a huge problem that also includes federal agencies routinely violating Freedom of Information Act law. They’ve twisted the law on its head, using it to obstruct and delay the release of obviously public information. They filter legitimate public records through political reviews before releasing them in a process that isn’t, in my view, allowed under Freedom of Information law."
1 posted on 02/01/2018 11:30:13 AM PST by Zuben Elgenubi
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To: Zuben Elgenubi

Sorry about the hot link at the top of the post. I think it might be the authors notes embedded in the article.


2 posted on 02/01/2018 11:31:33 AM PST by Zuben Elgenubi (NOPe to GOPe)
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To: Zuben Elgenubi

Related....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3628182/posts

Sara Carter also reporting on.


3 posted on 02/01/2018 11:33:18 AM PST by Jane Long (Praise God, from whom ALL blessings flow.)
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To: Zuben Elgenubi

An ongoing criminal enterprise has throughly infested the FBI and DOJ.


4 posted on 02/01/2018 11:33:46 AM PST by House Atreides (BOYCOTT the NFL, its products and players 100% - PERMANENTLY)
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To: Zuben Elgenubi

Documents released years after they should have been, when the news related to them had died down, reveal that during the Department of Justice’s Fast and Furious scandal—where federal agents were instructed to allow thousands of weapons to be trafficked to Mexican drug cartels—public records officials were told to forward any Freedom of Information Act requests that I made to a special tasker under the guise of “coordination.”

“Recently requests have been made to multiple components for certain records pertaining to Project Gunrunner, an ATF initiative,” a Department of Justice information official wrote to various agencies and officials on May 20, 2011, including DEA, the Attorney General’s office, the Marshal’s Service, the FBI and the Inspector General. “You should contact me directly before proceeding, and as soon as possible…Similarly, you should contact me if you receive a request from Sharyl Attkisson.”

Indeed, this process ensured that I did not receive lawful responses to Freedom of Information requests on Fast and Furious.

This sort of toying with public records is, in my view, one of the worst modern violations of the public trust by our government. The newly-released text messages further that view, but there appears to be no serious effort to remedy it.

Anyone in jail or fined due to any FBI/DOJ investigation going back to when Mueller was in Charge of the FBI down to the current deep state liars/thugs/crooks of the DOJ/FBI will be asking for a reversal.


Below is a very scary and earlier oped by SHARYL ATTKISSON:

As walls close in on FBI, the bureau lashes out at its antagonists!

BY SHARYL ATTKISSON, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 01/25/18 01:50 PM EST

There are two overarching issues.

First, there’s the alleged improper use of politically-funded opposition research to justify secret warrants to spy on U.S. citizens for political purposes.

Second, if corruption is ultimately identified at high levels in our intel agencies, it would necessitate a re-examination of every case and issue the officials touched over the past decade — or two — under administrations of both parties.

This is why I think the concerns transcend typical party politics.

It touches everybody. It’s potentially monumental.

This week, the FBI said it was unfair for the House Intelligence Committee not to provide its memo outlining alleged FBI abuses. The committee wrote the summary memo after reviewing classified government documents in the Trump-Russia probe.

Excerpted. For full story go to the link below:

http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/370717-as-walls-close-in-on-fbi-the-bureau-lashes-out-at-its-antagonists


5 posted on 02/01/2018 11:34:56 AM PST by Grampa Dave (When is it OUR TURN to keep our own money and live our own dreams!!!!?)
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To: House Atreides

Among other agencies
Maybe all of them


6 posted on 02/01/2018 11:35:41 AM PST by silverleaf (A man who kneels for the national anthem doesn't stand for much of anything)
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To: House Atreides

If Comey likes to dress up in ladies clothes, the parallels are amazing.


7 posted on 02/01/2018 11:35:53 AM PST by Ouchthatonehurt
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To: Zuben Elgenubi

Lock them up!!


8 posted on 02/01/2018 11:37:45 AM PST by simpson96
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To: Zuben Elgenubi

Maybe agents were being encouraged to compromise themselves. It’s easier to control an employee who’s compromised than one who is ethical...


9 posted on 02/01/2018 11:37:57 AM PST by GOPJ (Republicans care about Americans. Democrats care about illegals, corrupt elites, and criminals.)
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To: Zuben Elgenubi
The entire conversation between Page and Strzok can be viewed on pp. 3-4 of the letter from Sen. Johnson to R. Rosenstein, dated 1/31/2018, linked below:

https://www.scribd.com/document/370506017/2018-01-31-RHJ-to-DAG-Rosenstein-Strzok-Page-Texts?irgwc=1&content=27795&campaign=VigLink&ad_group=3059047&keyword=ft500noi&source=impactradius&medium=affiliate#from_embed

The whole letter is worth reading; it contains a number of other bombshells.

10 posted on 02/01/2018 11:37:58 AM PST by mojito (Zero, our Nero.)
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To: mojito

Bkmrk.


11 posted on 02/01/2018 11:40:17 AM PST by RushIsMyTeddyBear (Screw The NFL!!!!!! My family fought for the flag!)
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To: All

In a sane, “just” setting, that text alone would be enough to start sending people to prison for YEARS.


12 posted on 02/01/2018 11:40:42 AM PST by Maverick68
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To: Zuben Elgenubi

Waiting for Flynn to ask out of his conviction.


13 posted on 02/01/2018 11:41:21 AM PST by Williams (Stop tolerating the intolerant.)
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To: Jane Long

One immediate step towards fixing the problem should be extending the statute of limitations for federal records law violations to 13 years after the violation is discovered. That would be three presidential administrations plus 1 year. Plenty of time for them to worry about who might take charge of the government and prosecute them.


14 posted on 02/01/2018 11:42:39 AM PST by Cincinnatus.45-70 (What do DemocRats enjoy more than a truckload of dead babies? Unloading them with a pitchfork!)
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To: Zuben Elgenubi

“...evade federal record requirements...”

How many have the feds sent to prison for the very same “process crimes”?


15 posted on 02/01/2018 11:43:57 AM PST by jonno (Having an opinion is not the same as having the answer...)
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To: Zuben Elgenubi

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3628186/posts


16 posted on 02/01/2018 11:44:48 AM PST by KeyLargo
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To: mojito

Thank you, mojito


17 posted on 02/01/2018 11:45:41 AM PST by Zuben Elgenubi (NOPe to GOPe)
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To: Zuben Elgenubi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5g3pQiCiy4


18 posted on 02/01/2018 11:45:52 AM PST by bmwcyle (People who do not study history are destine to believe really ignorant statements.)
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To: Zuben Elgenubi; All

Well, there’s an easy fix:

Each carrier must submit all text messages (or use the NSA *wink wink*).

Govt cross-matches and any discrepancies are used to fine and fire the employee(s) attempting to subvert the retention policy laws.

No pensions, no bennies, just buh-bye and enjoy your stay @ the gray-bar hotel.


19 posted on 02/01/2018 11:45:56 AM PST by i_robot73 ("A man chooses. A slave obeys." - Andrew Ryan)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; Convert from ECUSA; ...
Thanks Zuben Elgenubi.

20 posted on 02/01/2018 11:46:58 AM PST by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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