Posted on 01/26/2018 9:25:49 PM PST by lowbuck
While we all sink our teeth into immigration, the fallout from the Democrats’ failed government shutdown, and this New York Times story that Trump wanted to fire Mueller last June—he didn’t, by the way—you’re missing the fight between House Republicans, the FBI, and the Department of Justice over this FISA memo. The four-page document details alleged abuses that are said to be akin to the activities of the KGB. Some lawmakers said it could lead to deep changes within the DOJ. Democrats have pushed back saying it’s a political stunt, aimed at undermining the credibility of the FBI. There’s speculation that the Obama administration used the unverified Trump dossier as the basis to secure FISA warrants to spy on members of the Trump campaign and transition team. The dossier was funded by the Hillary campaign. They hired Fusion GPS, a research firm, who in turn contracted an ex-MI6 operative to get information on Donald Trump. In all, it’s a lucrative opposition research file, most of which cannot be corroborated. The DOJ has been adamant that they review the memo before it’s release to prevent a reckless disclosure of information. The House GOP response has pretty much been to tell the DOJ/FBI to shove it. They’re not allowing them to read the memo. As of right now, this memo could be released next week (via Fox News):
Republicans appear to be proceeding with the release of a much-hyped memo that purportedly reveals government surveillance abuse -- despite Justice Department officials describing such a move as “extraordinarily reckless.”
Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote Wednesday to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., urging him not to release the memo.
“We believe it would be extraordinarily reckless for the Committee to disclose such information publicly without giving the Department and the FBI the opportunity to review the memorandum and to advise the HPSCI of the risk of harm to national security and to ongoing investigations that could come from public release,” he said.
Boyd continued, “Though we are currently unaware of any wrongdoing relating to the FISA process, we agree that any abuse of that system cannot be tolerated.”
But Republicans on the committee may be sticking to the plan. A source who supports the memo’s release told Fox News that the letter will not change Republicans’ resolve to release the memo as early as next week. That source said the committee voted to make the memo available to all House members and described the DOJ complaint as political.
“It’s really stupid they would try to block us from releasing the memo," a senior congressional intelligence source told Fox News Wednesday evening. "It only makes it worse for them. And it is more evidence that DOJ is trying to obstruct our investigation.”
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said on "The Ingraham Angle" that Nunes fully intends to go ahead with releasing the memo, and the DOJ objections were a sign the agency wanted to launch a pre-emptive attack and leak it to allies in the media.
The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel wrote in her op-ed yesterday that it appears the FBI/DOJ have engaged in a sustained campaign to drop a depth charge on the House GOP and pressure Donald Trump into blocking the memo’s release. It’s a game of sabotage [emphasis mine]:
Mr. Boyd gets in his cheap shots, for instance slamming Mr. Nunes for moving to release a memo based on documents that Mr. Nunes hasn’t even “seen.” He apparently thinks Rep. Trey Gowdy —the experienced former federal prosecutor Mr. Nunes asked to conduct the review of those docs—isn’t qualified to judge questions of national security. He hyperventilates that it would be “reckless” for the committee to make its memo public without first letting the Justice Department review it and “advise [the committee] of the risk of harm to national security.” Put another way, it is Mr. Boyd’s position that the Justice Department gets to provide oversight of Congress. The Constitution has it the other way around.
The bigger, swampier game here is to rally media pressure, and to mau-mau Mr. Nunes into giving the department a veto over the memo’s release. Ask Sen. Chuck Grassley how that goes. Mr. Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, recently sent a referral to the department for a criminal probe into dossier author Christopher Steele. He then in good faith asked the department its views on an unclassified portion of that referral that he wants to make public. The department invented a classified reason to block public release, and has refused to budge for weeks.
The Boyd letter is also a first step toward a bigger prize: President Trump. Under House rules, a majority of the Intelligence Committee can vote to declassify the memo. Mr. Trump then has up to five days to object to its release. If he doesn’t object, the memo goes public. If he does, a majority of the House would have to vote to override him.
The shrieks of reckless harm and national security are designed to pressure Mr. Trump to object. And wait for it: In coming days the Justice Department’s protectors will gin up a separate, desperate claim that Mr. Trump will somehow be “interfering” in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe unless he objects to the release. According to this view, it is Mr. Trump’s obligation not just to sit by while the media and the Mueller team concoct their narrative, but to block any evidence that might undercut it.
Sharyl Attkisson touched on the irony in her op-ed for The Hill, where she noted that the FBI has stonewalled Congress concerning documents relating to the Trump dossier and what appears to be election meddling and bias with some of their top officials, like FBI Agent Peter Strzok. Mr. Strzok was a top counterintelligence official at the bureau, who signed off on the counterintelligence investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians during the 2016 election. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is now heading that probe. Moreover, the FBI knows the classified documents that are being referred to in this memo. They have the information on their alleged wrongdoing and are trying to keep the dam from breaking on whatever is contained in these documents:
The FBI’s complaint carries a note of irony considering the agency has notoriously stonewalled Congress. Even when finally agreeing to provide requested documents, the Department of Justice uses the documents’ classified nature to severely restrict who can see them — even among members of Congress who possess the appropriate security clearance. Members who wish to view the documents must report to special locations during prescribed hours in the presence of Department of Justice minders who supervise them as they’re permitted to take handwritten notes only (you know, like the 1960s).
What most people don’t know is that the FBI and Department of Justice already know exactly what Congressional investigators have flagged in the documents they’ve reviewed, because three weeks ago the Senate Judiciary Committee sent its own summary memo to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The committee also referred to the Department of Justice a recommendation for possible charges against the author of the political opposition research file, the so-called Trump dossier: Christopher Steele.
The head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Republican Chuck Grassley (Iowa), co-authored the memo with fellow Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.). Grassley says it’s important for the public to see the unclassified portions of the memo. But unlike the House, which can release the memo on its own (and is taking steps to do so), Senate rules require permission from the Department of Justice — the possibly offending agency — to approve or declassify the memo. And that’s reached a snag.
According to Grassley, the FBI is blocking the release of the unclassified sections of the Senate memo by falsely claiming that they contain classified information.
“It sure looks like a bureaucratic game of hide the ball, rather than a genuine concern about national security,” said Grassley in a speech on the Senate floor yesterday.
Grassley also pointed out that agencies accused of possible improprieties are the ones controlling the information. It’s the FBI who may have misused the unverified “dossier” opposition research, allegedly presenting it to a secret court as if it were verified intelligence.
As long as the FBI keeps this information from Congress, the more intense the speculation becomes, and so far, as Strassel noted, it looks like the bureau is abusing their secrecy powers to avoid further embarrassment.
Like two FBI officials—Strzok and lawyer Lisa Page—who were having an extramarital affair with one another, texting each other 50,000 times, trashing Trump, praising Hilary, and having that be a reason why a top counterintelligence agent had to be reassigned to human resources. Oh, and of course the immense impropriety and potential damage to the credibility regarding this Russia investigation. More texts show that these two were worried about going too hard on the Hillary Clinton email probe, another investigation Strzok was involved in during the 2016 election.
“It sure looks like a bureaucratic game of hide the ball, rather than a genuine concern about national security,” said Grassley in a speech on the Senate floor yesterday."
This is what Boyd is trying to do. Get the opportunity to "review" the House memo for classified content, and just stall and stall and stall...
Instead. Nunes and the House leadership is telling him to go to hell. Boyd will have 5 days after the memo is voted for release, and he can take his "concerns" on classified content to President Trump.
DOJ/FBI bureaucracy lost a lot of points with Trump when they had 7 months and "failed to retrieve" Strzok and Page texts.
Trump actually mocked them in a tweet with "Blame Samsung!".
Even worse for the FBI/DOJ when the OIG retrieved the texts in 2 days.
You may be right. I tend to bail after a few paragraphs on overly long articles, and probably missed that part.
It appears that the DOJ and FBI need to be cleansed by a Flame Thrower.
Supermax prison; life without the possibility of parole for all involved in trying to overthrow the U.S. gov’t and a legally-elected President. Long, long, long prison terms and they must never be let out.
I don’t think this has ANYTHING to do with deep state if the DOJ is pushing back. Think logically for one second. If the DOJ is attempting to build a case and details surrounding that case are within that memo good luck proceeding with that case and ever obtaining convictions. It could be so damning that a judge could toss any case immediately or never allow its contents admissible within the court. Furthermore if conviction hinges upon what may be in that memo you can kiss ever seeing anyone go to prison goodbye. There are reasons why they are lawyers who may possibly be looking out for the best interests of building a bullet proof case
See 25, it’s not just about potential classified anything. Within the article it states ongoing investigations. If this is the DOJ those investigations involve all the players wrapped up in the present scandal and that potential evidence if released could flush the whole case down the commode
The media collusion is a big part of this story.
I use the term “preparing the battle space” with regards to all the “discussion” on releasing this four-page memo.
Lots of “experts” telling us what is and is not acceptable.
However, the one that makes the most sense to me is (1) the House votes to release the memo, (2) copies are sent to the President and his team and (3) a decision is made to either release or tell the DOJ to fight this release.
Regarding your point, and criminal investigations by DOJ that might be compromised, I think that step (2) above is the “circuit breaker” that will allow things to proceed without shooting one of the “white hats” in the foot.
Appreciate your comments as there are so many sides to what is going on, no one person can cover them all. That is one reason I like to post/comment at FR. Here you get a lot of very diverse comments that can help one look in areas that had eluded them before.
“I think that there is an effort underway to “prep the battlefield” with a simple to understand message that the great unwashed can understand and react too. Perhaps that is this touted four-page memo.”
I certainly haven’t seen that message. All the talking heads on ‘our’ side can’t seem to distill the message down into a big picture. They talk about 10 different people, FISA, dossier and a million other things.
The facts on the ground:
After 28 years of clintons, bushes and O’muslims, the fed govt is irreparably corrupt...Illegitimate.
We have a leftist controlled stasi state that are at war with a lawfully elected President of the United States and the American people that voted for him. The marxist left control the courts, fakestream media and blue states, too.
Btw, we were a constitutional republic with a very limited democratic process to elect our representatives. Now were just a banana republic.
Hey thanks for that! My first reaction was yours as well! I’m so hard of Jeff Sessions and wished Trump would dump him but something with this article made me take a step back and say why would lawyers in the DOJ wish to see this before it is released and possibly wish for it to never be released? Then it hit me like a ton of bricks omg lawyers have possibly been building a case for over a year and a single memo could flush it all down the toilet! Have an excellent morning FRiend
p
The masses only have 3-5 minute attention spans so I am curious what is in the 4-page memo.
Knowing that members of FR like to get the facts if you have a spare 30-minutes this you-tube gives an excellent analysis of what has transpired by former federal prosecutor.
Did you post this the other day? I watched this twice and learned more from this video than the last year about this scandal and feel this is exactly how this went down
Boyd continued, “Though we are currently unaware of any wrongdoing relating to the FISA process, we agree that any abuse of that system cannot be tolerated.”
baloney the previous report showed tons of abuses of FISA
as for damaging possible criminal cases that is the age old question of fair trial vs free press
someone needs to leak it to the media asap
Democrats in the same situation, would have already leaked the document. Better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
Time to clean out DOJ. Its’ leadership has been corrupted by 8 years of Comrade Obama’s manipulation of it, as well as putting a “shadow government” into its heart.
Sessions looks very weak on this issue and I don’t think he’s going to last because he hasn’t done the housecleaning so badly needed.
FBI director Wray seems out of his league on running the Bureau while McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohrs, and the DOJ leftists of Weissman, Rosenstine, Yates (gone thank God), and others are just political hacks who have violated the ethics of their job, being unbiased, professional, and ethical.
You can bitch and moan all you want about J. Edgard Hoover and his administrative policies and tactics, but we never had such political corruption in the FBI and DOJ as we have inherited from Obama/Holder/Lynch and “friends”.
Just one last thing. If the government (FBI, CIA, Treasury, and DIA, etc) were to release all the documents they have on the Democrats and their treasonous activities on behalf of Moscow, Peking, Havana, Managua, Bishop’s Grenada and the African Marxist countries, half of the Congressional Black Caucus of today and the past, would be in jail, along with key Democrat leaders such as Ted Kennedy (the footsie friend of the KGB),, Ron Dellums (Marxist), John Conyers Jr - most likely a high ranking KGB asset and top supporter of the Communist Party, along with the late Bella Abzug, another KGB asset), possibly Peter Rodino (as an accessory to aiding our enemies by trying to destroy government internal security files), McGovern, Abourezk (the PLO guy), Dingell (pick a charge, any charge), Danny Davis, Maxine Waters, half of the old California Democrats in the House (esp. the Burton Brothers), Alan Cranston (a possible accessory before the fact to the murder of labor leader Carlos Tresca), Charles O. Porter, Hugh DeLacy (id. CPUSA), Robert Drinan, Kastenmaier, Parren Mitchell (possibly CPUSA and Soviet asset), John Tunney (the stupidest Senator in recent years until Warner (D-VA) and Ben Cardin (D-Md) came along; Charles Rangel (pick one - crook, communist sympathizer, tax evader re his trips to the Dominican Republic); Charles Hayes (D-Ill, CPUSA); Don Edwards (D-CA) and his involvement with two Soviet spies, Fields and Dodd; etc.
John Kerry deserves his own paragraph. Three “FAKE WOUNDS” in Vietnam, playing around with the Communists in the pro-Hanoi “Anti-Vietnam movement”, his participation in the Maoist Communist dominated Vietnam Veterans Against the War in Vietnam (1972-73); his helping the Sandinistas in Nicaragua; his betrayal of Israel last week; and his FAKE “La Penca/Varelli” “Contra-drugs conspiracy” ) investigations the wasted millions in taxpayers dollar while he hired very disreputable people for his staff (but won’t tell anyone any details about it).
Obama - Call him “Made in Moscow” and “Made by Marxist Alinsky”. He had enough communist/Marxist friends and mentors to start his own communist organization. Oh, and don’t forget the psychopathic neighbor and educational group leader Bill Ayers, among others.
His “neighborhood” with all its leftist friends and acquaintances in Chicago, should have been known as “Little Moscow”. Rose, Canter, Wolf, Ayers and Dohrn, Cohen, Young, the Palmers, Wright (the Cuban-loving Rev), etc.
Believe it or not, I’ve only touched on the most important people and operations. If you added in secondary players and groups, Obama’s “Marxist swamp” would have included people in at least 5 other states throughout his life, and there are still a lot of people around him whose real ideological affiliations/loyalties have not been adequately explored and exposed.
The Democrat Party from the 1930’s and 40’s (in part), and then the 60’s onward, were the worst thing that could happen to America and we are reaping their long-range planning today from immigration, welfare, voter padding, massive corruption, ties to the Mafia/labor unions in the past, and the deliberate emasculation and corruption of our government agencies esp. DOJ, FBI, EPA, DOD, D/Educ, and Congress.
If you doubt me, as Rush would say, go read a newspaper, look at your financial situation during the past 8 years, crime rates around the country, the state of our schools and colleges, the destruction of “free speech” for some, the massive attacks on religion, and what is left of ethics, morality, and decency.
It was no accident that the sad state of America today “Just” happened. It was planned long ago, along with “malice and forethought”, the end game being the deconstruction of the US as the leader of the Free World and its reduction to a 2nd or 3rd Rate Power dominated by Russia and Red China, with Iran now thrown in for the icing.
If you listen to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) give the Democrat’s “answer” to the President’s “state of the union”, write down how many times she denigrates the president, many members of Congress, conservatives, white people, successful business people, old-line families of legal immigrants, our foreign defense policies, our attempts to get a handle on crime (by illegal aliens, gangs, cartels, Red Chinese drug smuggling), and attempts to reform the tax system, our educational institutions (including “free speech” protection for all), etc.
She is EVIL PERSONIFIED as the voice of the Democrat Party. Listen to her very carefully. It is 1933 all over again.
“What most people don’t know is that the FBI and Department of Justice already know exactly what Congressional investigators have flagged in the documents they’ve reviewed, because three weeks ago the Senate Judiciary Committee sent its own summary memo to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. “
I don’t know anyone so dense not to have figured out that they already know the information Congress has flagged. What troubles me, is that our own justice department, not to mention the FBI, is obviously trying to obstruct the American people from learning the truth about an illegal operation the FBI used to subvert, undermine, and apparently annul the presidency of Donald Trump.
I don't understand why the DOJ would be trying to twist President Trump's arm into vetoing the release of this memo.
FReeper LS seems to be of the opinion that the DOJ is justified in its desire to suppress the release of this memo—which is apparently against the President's preference. LS's ostensible reason—if I understand him correctly—is that the scope and import of the corruption that's being uncovered is extremely widespread, and therefore releasing the memo would introduce absolute mayhem into the dynamic.
That may be the case, but I say let the chips fall where they may. I, for one, am not about to second-guess the President or Chairman Nunes if they are in agreement. And I'm more than willing to second-guess the DOJ as things currently stand. I don't really understand what the compelling reason is that the DOJ would be trying to convince the President to change his mind on this question.
Claiming that chaos would ensue isn't sufficient reason to suppress the memo, IMHO, because if things are as bad as they portend, then chaos should ensue, to a certain degree at least—especially chaos that's justifiably aimed at the Democrats, Hillary, Obama, and his DOJ and FBI. Shouldn't we want such chaos to be something the Propaganda Media is finally forced to report on?
I'm not sure how "incrementally" this kind of information can be released, without taking on the appearance of a cover up—and the Trump administration doesn't need to be within a million miles of that word...
None of us know for sure but my instinct tells me that Rosenstein, who has effectively been running the DOJ, is not going after the FBI rats. McCabe and the others should been suspended months ago to ensure they had no presence and potential influence over the investigation of their activities. Imagine the mischief that Strzok could cause in his position within the FBI human resurces department if he thought agents were potentially going to sing against the Secret Society. Release the memo.
that is a start, they are not the only alphabet agencies that need cleansing fire.
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