The skyline lit with red white and blue for Memorial Day
Posted on 05/26/2019 12:16:08 PM PDT by ransomnote
Since we can’t post this as a thread, I’ll put the whole post here:
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Obama Administration’s Snooping on Journalists’ Phone Records Broader Than Previously Known
THE EPOCH TIMES 5/28/2019
The Justice Department’s seizing of journalists’ phone records during the administration of President Barack Obama was more extensive than previously reported, recently released documents show.
In 2013, The Associated Press raised the alarm after the Justice Department (DOJ) informed the news service that it had subpoenaed and obtained the records—not including content of the calls—of 21 mobile phones and land lines, including home numbers assigned to AP journalists, and their offices.
But the DOJ had, in fact, issued 30 subpoenas for records of 30 phone lines “it believed to be those of The Associated Press reporters and editors,” according to a 2014 report by the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR).
The report, albeit heavily redacted, was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the Knight First Amendment Institute (KFAI) at Columbia University and the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF).
The subpoenas covered a period between April 1, 2012, and May 10, 2012, as part of an investigation into who leaked classified documents that the AP used to produce several articles about the CIA foiling a Yemen-based plot to put a bomb on an airliner.
“The White House had said there was no credible threat to the American people in May of 2012. The AP story suggested otherwise, and we felt that was important information and the public deserved to know it,” AP President and Chief Executive Gary Pruitt said in a May 14, 2013, statement.
The OPR report says that then-Deputy Attorney General James Cole only approved the subpoenas on Feb. 6, 2013, after investigators interviewed more than 550 witnesses and reviewed thousands of government documents, but still “failed to produce investigative leads concerning the source of the leak.”
The AP alleged that the DOJ overreached, including by seizing records for general numbers for some of AP’s offices, including those in New York City and Washington.
“These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP [during the targeted period],” Pruitt said in a letter to then-Attorney General Eric Holder, also saying that the records could “provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.”
Media Guidelines
The DOJ’s media guidelines require that subpoenas against journalists are “narrowly drawn,” but the OPR report shows how low of a bar that could be, according to Ramya Krishnan, attorney at KFAI, and Trevor Timm, FPF’s executive director.
The OPR report indicates that the DOJ originally wanted to subpoena records of The New York Times, Washington Post, and ABC News reporters, as well, since those outlets followed up on the AP articles and they too apparently used classified information, including some that wasn’t used in the AP articles. But because the DOJ held back on those, the OPR concluded that the AP subpoenas were already “significantly and deliberately narrowed.”
The guidelines also required that journalists be contacted ahead of time if their records are to be seized, as long as “such negotiations would not pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation.”
In its conclusion, the OPR stated that the DOJ “could reasonably conclude that it was unable to find that negotiations would not pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the leak investigation” and, thus, the DOJ “was free to forgo negotiation and decline to provide The Associated Press with advance notice” of the subpoenas.
“The Justice Department’s narrow interpretation of the Media Guidelines throws into sharp relief the weakness of some of the only legal protections journalists have,” Krishnan and Timm said in a May 23 article in the Columbia Journalism Review.
In response to the uproar over the subpoenas, Holder had the guidelines revised, but they still include much of the same flexibility, including the exception that journalists will only be notified in advance unless “such notice would pose a clear and substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation, risk grave harm to national security, or present an imminent risk of death or serious bodily harm.”
The Associated Press and the DOJ didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Leak Crackdown
Under Holder, the DOJ pursued at least nine leak-related prosecutions, more than all previous administrations combined, The New York Times reported.
President Donald Trump also called for a leak crackdown after his administration faced a stream of classified information reaching the media. In one of the most striking examples, Trump’s calls with his Australian and Mexican counterparts shortly after entering office were leaked to the media.
On Dec. 20, 2018, former Senate staffer James Wolfe was sentenced to two months in prison for lying to FBI agents who were investigating the leak of a top-secret surveillance warrant application on a former associate of the Trump campaign, Carter Page.
As part of that investigation, the DOJ obtained some of the email and phone records of a New York Times reporter, Ali Watkins.
Watkins was in an intimate relationship with Wolfe since 2013, spanning her tenure at publications including McClatchy Newspapers, The Huffington Post, Politico, and Buzzfeed News, but ended it before she joined The New York Times, she told the publication. Wolfe’s indictment alleged he leaked classified information to at least four reporters. The New York Times has said Watkins was one of them, although she denies ever using Wolfe as a source.
Bucket 1: The last FISA renewal, and supporting documents, which was signed by Rod Rosenstein.
Bucket 2: Bruce Ohr reports, which are the emails between Bruce Ohr and his wife and others.
Bucket 3: Exculpatory evidence that wasn't presented to the FISA court, in other words, evidence that would say there was no collusion between Donald Trump and the Russians.
Bucket 4: Emails between FBI and DOJ and others that clearly show that they knew about information that should have been presented to the FISA court.
Bucket 5: The president will begin with with the release of “Bucket 5” documents, otherwise known as exculpatory statements the FBI possessed about its targets before agents went to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to get warrants to spy on them. Bucket 5 also includes transcripts and tapes of former Trump advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page saying that there was no way the 2016 campaign was working with Russians — information that Obama’s FBI and Justice Department did not share with the FISA court.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has opposed virtually everything President Trump has done since he took office, but she apparently cheered at his firing of FBI Director James Comey according to a new book.
In the volume, “We’ve Got People: From Jesse Jackson to AOC, the End of Big Money and the Rise of a Movement,” author Ryan Grim, the Washington bureau chief of The Intercept, interviewed people in Clinton’s inner circle, including former spokesman Brian Fallon.
Grim said Clinton was “ecstatic” when news of the Comey move broke.
“She had spent the winter and spring poring over survey and turnout data, calling friends and former aides relentlessly, analyzing and re-analyzing,” Grim writes. “It was, her friends believed, both part of her grieving process, but also holding her back from moving on. When she learned that Comey had been fired by Trump, she was ecstatic. Comey had finally gotten what he had coming.”
Grim added that she was “ultimately dissuaded by advisers from issuing a statement applauding the move.”
The former presidential candidate has been a vocal critic of Comey over his handling of an investigation into her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. Many of his critics believe his reopening of the probe just days before the 2016 election handed victory to Trump.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has opposed virtually everything President Trump has done since he took office, but she apparently cheered at his firing of FBI Director James Comey according to a new book.
In the volume, “We’ve Got People: From Jesse Jackson to AOC, the End of Big Money and the Rise of a Movement,” author Ryan Grim, the Washington bureau chief of The Intercept, interviewed people in Clinton’s inner circle, including former spokesman Brian Fallon.
Grim said Clinton was “ecstatic” when news of the Comey move broke.
“She had spent the winter and spring poring over survey and turnout data, calling friends and former aides relentlessly, analyzing and re-analyzing,” Grim writes. “It was, her friends believed, both part of her grieving process, but also holding her back from moving on. When she learned that Comey had been fired by Trump, she was ecstatic. Comey had finally gotten what he had coming.”
Grim added that she was “ultimately dissuaded by advisers from issuing a statement applauding the move.”
The former presidential candidate has been a vocal critic of Comey over his handling of an investigation into her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. Many of his critics believe his reopening of the probe just days before the 2016 election handed victory to Trump.
Nice articles. Good catches.
That bozo picture is really creepy. The audience looks like a cross between children of the corn and chuckie...
https://biglawbusiness.com/former-u-s-attorney-general-loretta-lynch-heads-to-paul-weiss
Loretta Lynch, the first black woman to serve as U.S. attorney general, is joining Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison as a partner in its litigation department.
Lynch, whose first official day at the firm is June 3, will represent corporations, boards of directors, and individual clients in federal and state government investigations, criminal prosecutions, and bet-the-company enforcement actions and other investigations.
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Haha, she won’t have any clients because she’ll have to be recused as either a witness or a co-conspirator. :)
gisd O
Re: carter page
Carter Page alleges extensive contacts with alleged FBI informant, as Strzok-Page texts draw renewed scrutiny
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/carter-page-fbi-informant-peter-strzok-texts
Following President Trump’s decision to allow the declassification of key Russia records at Attorney General Bill Barr’s discretion, former Trump campaign aide Carter Page told Fox News his contact with alleged FBI informant Stefan Halper at a pivotal period in the Russia probe was more extensive than previously reported.
Separately, Fox News has learned congressional investigators have been renewing their focus on a text message sent nine days before the government’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) application to monitor Page, in which then-FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page questioned “who’s playing games,” “scared” and “covering.”
Republican critics have suggested the earliest records to be declassified and publicly released could reveal so-called exculpatory evidence regarding Page and Trump aide George Papadopolous. Because the FISA court is ex parte, meaning it involves only the government providing evidence without any defense team present, the government has a unique constitutional and procedural responsibility to provide not only evidence supporting its surveillance application, but also exculpatory evidence that could undercut the application.
Some GOP lawmakers have alleged that exculpatory evidence was available but likely withheld from the court.
“There was western intelligence sent to spy on Papadopoulos and there’s a recording and transcript of the conversation,” Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz told Fox News. “And there, Papadopoulos denies any illegal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. So, they had evidence presumably that was against Papadopoulos and for him. What they will never be able to defend is that they never presented that evidence to the FISA court.”
A previously revealed text message conversation between Strzok and Lisa Page, meanwhile, has come into focus.
The text referencing “who’s playing games” and “covering” was released last year, but Fox News recently confirmed the names hidden beneath redactions. They included a senior FBI lawyer, as well as the FBI agent “Gaeta” — believed to be a principal handler for the dossier and its author, British ex-spy Christopher Steele.
“This is why declassification is so important, so Americans can finally see for themselves all the facts about how the Russia hoax began and how it spread,” California GOP Rep. Devin Nunes told Fox News.
The Strzok-Page text was sent on Oct. 13, 2016, during a tense period eight days before the FBI and DOJ secured a surveillance warrant for Page. Hours earlier, on Oct. 12, texts exclusively obtained by Fox News showed Page complaining to her boss, then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, about the apparent reluctance of a Justice Department official to approve the Page surveillance application.
And, within hours of that exchange, a senior state department official, Kathleen Kavalec, had emailed her FBI counterpart about information provided to her by Steele — an apparent breach of the former spy’s work as a confidential human source for the bureau. Confidential human sources ordinarily do not reach out to multiple government agencies.
In the Oct.13 text to Page, Strzok wrote: “We got the reporting on Sept 19. Looks like [Gaeta] got it early August. Looking at [Clinesmith] lync [internal messaging service] replies to me it’s not clear if he knows if/when he told them. But [Steve] and [Kate] talked with [Spencer] they’re both good and will remember. It’s not about rubbing their nose in it. I don’t care if they don’t know. I just want to know who’s playing games/scared covering. totally get it will never be provable.”
Based on Lisa Page’s 2018 closed-door congressional testimony, Gaeta is believed to be the FBI agent who met with Steele in the summer of 2016 obtaining the first memos in early July. “Clinesmith” is believed to be then-FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith.
It was not clear from the texts whether “Steve” and “Kate” refer to FBI or State Department employees.
“Spencer’s” identity is unknown but has remained of significant interest to congressional investigators who have questioned whether he operated outside of the FBI and DOJ, potentially as part of the intelligence community.
(Excerpt more at link)
I hope you’re not in a flooding/flooded zone.
Any updates for us? You all right?
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Thanks for asking, KitJ.
We are on high ground. We went to view some of the flooding yesterday, and it is of ginormous proportions. I took lots of pictures. The small building in a park on the flood plain only had its roof sticking up. It was closed, but there was a small family set up with lawn chairs fishing! LOL!
I got fairly close to the bank of the main river in another location from the family. The water was moving so fast. It would be very treacherous to be out in it, in my view. Darlin and I were amazed at how close under the bridges the water was. The various rivers in our area are all several feet above what is defined as normal flood stage. For example, flood stage on one river would normally be defined at 11 feet - today the flood stage was about 9 or 10 feet above that. Record breaking floods. Wow.
I was supposed to go to a gathering today which was on the other side of one of the flooding rivers. I believe the bridge across ended up being ok, but Darlin didn’t want me to risk being able to get there and then not being able to come home in the event the bridge would be closed - so I didn’t go.
It is soupy muddy in a lot of places. Can’t easily mow, and the grass is deliriously happy and growing like Topsy. But overall, things are quite well with us. Settling in for some more possible rain tonight.
I don’t believe they’re going to have a cash problem, the rates to advertise probably went up, the guy is fun to watch.
Seen him win from the beginning and his story is pretty interesting.
There was a lady from my area here in Chicagoland that was a contestant with him and she wrote a pathetic screed for the paper. Sour grapes all around...
Glad you and yours are safe Texie.
Was worried.
The skyline lit with red white and blue for Memorial Day
November 25, 1963 was the third birthday of the slain President’s son, John Jr., and the day of the presidential funeral.
The widow, wearing a black veil, led the way up the steps of the cathedral holding the hands of her two children, with John Jr., whose third birthday fell on the day of his father’s funeral, on her left, and Caroline on her right. Because of the funeral and the day of mourning, the widow postponed John Jr.’s birthday party until December 5, the last day the family was in the White House.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_funeral_of_John_F._Kennedy
D5
Nod to tweet of wewhowait
I shared it with Texas wife and her Texas mom. I agree with the song: "The girls in Texas are a little bit better" -- even when you drag 'em out of Texas.
The judge sounds very good. Hard to imagine Raniere will get off lightly. I hope those participants who testify against him also have prison time, and that every penny of NXIVM $ is taken.
Somebody recently mentioned that the purpose of the cash was to buy the cooperation of people in Europe for Iran's nefarious plans.
And then I remembered that the $1.5B on pallets wasn't just greenbacks. There were also Swiss francs and Euros, according to the early reports.
There are no coincidences.
I seem to remember reading that very likely some of the cash likely made its way to overseas bank accounts belonging to for instance, 0bola.
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