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snip For years, Rosenstein had carefully tended to his reputation as an apolitical lawman, beloved of both parties. At a time when Trump nominees for top executive offices were extraordinarily difficult to move through the Senate with Republicans holding a razor thin 51–49 majority, Rosenstein breezed to confirmation as deputy attorney general by the margin of 94 to 6, with overwhelming #Resistance support. Yet, on Comey’s firing, he badly misdiagnosed the Democrats. Like the president and some B-Team White House advisers, Rosenstein figured that his memo — so solicitous of Mrs. Clinton, so respectful of Democratic as well as Republican...

Text messages from disgraced FBI figures Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, discussing whether to open a "case" in a "formal chargeable way" after Director James Comey was fired, are under fresh scrutiny after Page told congressional investigators there was no evidence of Russian collusion at the time, according to three congressional sources. Two hours after Comey's termination became public on May 9, 2017, Strzok, a now-former FBI agent, texted Page, his then-colleague and lover: "We need to open the case we've been waiting on now while Andy is acting." "Andy" is a reference to then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe who temporarily...

Adam Lovinger, a former Defense Department analyst ... a whistleblower, is now battling to save his career. The Pentagon suspended his top-secret security clearance May 1, 2017, when he exposed through an internal review that Stefan Halper, who was then an emeritus Cambridge professor, had received roughly $1 million in tax-payer funded money to write Defense Department foreign policy reports, his attorney Sean Bigley said. Before Lovinger's clearance was suspended he had taken a detail to the National Security Council as senior director for strategy. He was only there for five months before he was recalled to the Pentagon, stripped...

A Pentagon analyst was stripped of his security clearance by Obama holdovers after he complained of suspicious government contracts with Stefan Halper, the FBI informant who spied on the Trump presidential campaign in 2016, the Washington Times reported. The pro-Trump analyst also apparently ruffled feathers when he blew the whistle on an alleged sweetheart deal with a woman Chelsea Clinton referred to as her “best friend.” Adam Lovinger, a senior official of the Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment (ONA), had his security clearance yanked on May 1, 2017, and has been relegated to performing clerical chores ever since. ONA...

New communications between Ohr and Steele reveal even deeper ties A trove of emails and handwritten notes from Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr exposes the continuous contact and communication between the DOJ attorney and anti-Trump dossier author Christopher Steele, according to notes and documents obtained by SaraACarter.com. The emails and notes were written between 2016 and 2017. The notes and emails also reveal that Ohr was in communication with Glenn Simpson, the founder of the embattled research firm Fusion GPS, which was paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC to hire Steele. In one of Ohr’s handwritten notes...

When Omarosa Manigault-Newman, a star villain on Donald Trump’s reality TV show The Apprentice, worked in the Trump administration last year, other senior staffers—even some more senior than she was—feared her. And when she was ousted from the administration—in what White House officials described at the time as a “ruckus”—there was widespread relief that one of Trumpworld’s most vengeful figures was no longer around. But Omarosa is, if nothing, known for second acts. And, once more, she’s sparking headaches inside the administration. Her new book UNHINGED: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House, is being viewed as an act...

Christopher Steele expressed concern last year at a Senate committee’s request for information about the former British spy’s anti-Trump dossier, according to text messages recently provided to Congress. “Would it be possible to speak later today please? We’re very concerned by the Grassley letter and it’s possible implications for us, our operations and our sources. We need some reassurances,” Steele wrote in a March 7, 2017 text message to Bruce Ohr, who then served as deputy assistant attorney general. Steele, a former MI6 officer, was seemingly referring to a March 6, 2017 letter that Senate Committee on the Judiciary Chairman...

FBI agent Peter Strzok said Thursday he doesn’t know how many witnesses, if any, he interviewed as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe before texting his mistress that President Trump should be impeached. Rep. Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Republican, had asked Mr. Strzok the question early in the embattled FBI agent’s testimony before Congress. However, Mr. Strzok declined to answer citing the advice of FBI counsel. After a brief recess, Mr. Strzok said he was advised that he could answer the question. But when they returned from recess, Mr. Gowdy again asked Mr. Strzok how many witnesses he...

<p>Ali Watkins worked for Buzzfeed as the National Security Reporter from Nov 2015 to May 2017. During this time, the Russian Dossier was released. You can check her linkedin for this information.</p> <p>Dossier paid for with campaign funds from the clinton campaign and DNC.</p>

White House Communications Director Mike Dubke is out, CBS News has confirmed. Dubke has no attachment to Mr. Trump and has always been something of an outsider. He's not a Trump loyalist and did not work for the campaign.

Mike Dubke, the White House communications director, resigned, according to a report. Dubke, 47, resigned on May 18, but agreed to stay on until President Trump returned from his first overseas trip, ABC News reported. Before joining the White House three months ago, he was one of the founders of the Republican media services firm Crossroads Media.

Mike Dubke, President Trump's communications director, is leaving the White House — the start of a wave of changes as the West Wing struggles to cope with burgeoning scandals and a stalled agenda... Bring in the killers ... Trump is considering much broader changes, including the possibility of bringing in David Urban, a prominent GOP lobbyist who was a senior adviser on the campaign, as chief of staff. Trump met yesterday with two top officials from his campaign, Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, about joining the crisis-communications war room he's setting up, perhaps as part of an outside-inside duet... Sean...

The primary question within the letter is: under what authority, and within what statute, is the AAG authorized to assign a counterintelligence investigation to a special counsel: “More specifically, section 600.1 states the Attorney General “will appoint a Special Counsel when he or she determines that criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted.” The omitted regulations do not authorize counterintelligence investigations.” One of the questions within the letter is additionally interesting. SEE: 7. “Have you delegated FISA approval authority to the Special Counsel? If so, on what date, and was the delegation done in writing? If it was...

Report: John Brennan Worked ‘Pee Dossier’ into Obama’s Daily Briefing, Called Steele ‘Credible Source’ (Full Title) A new report alleges that former CIA Director John Brennan included claims from the dubious Steele dossier into President Barack Obama’s Presidential Daily Brief — without disclosing the source of the allegations. “Brennan put some of the dossier material into the PDB [presidential daily briefing] for Obama and described it as coming from a ‘credible source,’ which is how they viewed Steele,” a source close to the House probe told Real Clear Investigations reporter Paul Sperry. “But they never corroborated his sources,” the source...

I nominate Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, as the most inconsistent, mysterious, and therefore most unpredictable major politician on the world stage. His victory in a referendum last Sunday formally bestows him with near-dictatorial powers that leave Turkey, the Middle East, and beyond in a greater state of uncertainty than ever.Here are some of the puzzles:Mystery #1: Holding the referendum. The Turkish electorate voted on April 16 in a remarkable national plebiscite that dealt not with the usual topic – floating a bond or recalling a politician – but with fundamental constitutional changes affecting the very nature of their...

<p>An armed woman crashed her car into a barrier near the White House on Friday, briefly sending it into lockdown, authorities said.</p> <p>Jessica R. Ford, 35, of La Vergne, Tenn., — about 20 miles southeast of Nashville — barreled through a barrier at 17th and E Streets NW near the Old Executive Office Building while holding a pistol, police said.</p>

Many senior and long-time staffers of the House Oversight Committee plan a walkout when Congressman Trey Gowdy takes the gavel over from Jason Chaffetz. Gowdy, who led the two-year House Benghazi probe, has secured near-unanimous support among members of the House Republican Steering Committee as well as Speaker Paul Ryan. Additionally, Jason Chaffetz has not been seen at work “for three months” and generally only appears when cameras are rolling.

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House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz on Monday said he will postpone a hearing scheduled for Wednesday after speaking with former FBI Director James Comey, who had been invited to testify. “Spoke with Comey. He wants to speak with Special Counsel prior to public testimony. Hearing Wed postponed. @GOPoversight,” Chaffetz tweeted. Comey has agreed to a separate request to testify publicly before the Senate Intelligence Committee, a session that’s expected to be scheduled for after Memorial Day.

Hackers using a tool stolen from the United States government conducted extensive cyberattacks on Friday that hit dozens of countries around the world, severely disrupting Britain’s public health system and wreaking havoc on computers elsewhere, including Russia. The tool was leaked by a group calling itself the Shadow Brokers, which has been dumping stolen N.S.A. hacking tools online since last year. Microsoft rolled out a patch for the vulnerability in March, but hackers apparently took advantage of the fact that vulnerable targets — particularly hospitals — had yet to update their systems. The malware was circulated by email. Targets were...