Free Republic

After weeks of pledging to hold Attorney General William P. Barr and the former White House counsel Donald F. McGahn II in contempt for defying subpoenas, House Democrats appear poised to pursue an alternative path to try to force them into sharing information. A resolution that the House Rules Committee unveiled on Thursday would authorize the House to petition a federal court to enforce its requests for information and testimony related to the report of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, but without mentioning contempt. The committee is expected to consider the proposal on Monday, followed by a full...

The DOJ has released the FBI agent report (FD-302) written after their interview of Michael Flynn on Jan 24th, 2017. (Full pdf below) From prior testimony we know that FBI Agent Peter Strzok did the questioning and FBI Agent Joe Pientka took notes. However, for some reason, within the DOJ release of the report they are continuing to redact the name Joe Pientka. [Could be due to ongoing employment] It’s worth noting according to Mark Meadows the Office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz has interviewed Joe Pientka extensively; prior attempts by congress to gain testimony from Pientka were blocked by...

This is a very interesting development and may well indicate a change in strategy; or, even more interesting, the execution of a pre-planned strategy, for General Michael Flynn. There is a possibility, with legal distance happening as a result of Weissmann and Mueller’s investigation concluding, that Michael Flynn may be shifting to offense. Two separate court filings today show: (1) Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has fired his legal team and retained new counsel; and, (2) the DOJ is filing the evidentiary documents (possibly Joe Pientka 302 and Kislyak transcript?) under seal.

DOJ reveals Dems acknowledged Barr subpoena was 'overbroad'; Nadler fires back, offers to meet 'without conditions' Hours after the Department of Justice (DOJ) slammed House Democrats for planning a contempt vote against Attorney General Bill Barr -- and charged that Democrats had privately admitted their subpoena requests were "overbroad" -- House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler announced late Tuesday that he is open to negotiating with the DOJ "without conditions." The remarkable turn of events reopened the possibility that Barr's contempt vote may be postponed or canceled, if both sides return to the negotiating table. Nadler, however, pointedly refused to...

Clinton-Appointed Judge Reverses Course, Covers For Deep State – Will Keep Flynn-Kislyak Transcripts Hidden From Public. ( Full title). Judge Emmet Sullivan, a Clinton-appointee, reversed course on Tuesday and allowed the Justice Department to keep the transcripts of the calls between General Mike Flynn and former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak hidden from the public. Judge Sullivan last month ordered the transcripts of the recorded calls between Flynn and Kislyak to be released by last Friday, but federal prosecutors defied the judge’s orders. ... these are the very transcripts that were already selectively leaked to David Ignatius of the Washington Post...

... The onetime Obama administration official appeared on CNN to discuss Attorney General William Barr facing a contempt vote by a Democrat-controlled House next week over fuller access to special counsel Robert Mueller's report, which was released in April with redactions, and allegations that he is trying to protect the president. ... The onetime Obama administration official appeared on CNN to discuss Attorney General William Barr facing a contempt vote by a Democrat-controlled House next week over fuller access to special counsel Robert Mueller's report, which was released in April with redactions, and allegations that he is trying to protect...

The Department of Justice on Monday sought to refute new allegations that a GOP redistricting operative played a significant role in getting a citizenship question on the 2020 census, calling the claims false and without merit. In a new court filing, DOJ lawyers offered a biting rebuke to the allegations made against Trump administration officials of attempting to obscure the role of the late GOP operative Thomas Hofeller in adding the citizenship question. “The motion borders on frivolous, and appears to be an attempt to reopen the evidence in this already-closed case and to drag this Court into Plaintiffs’ eleventh-hour...

The House Oversight Committee announced Monday it will hold a vote to recommend holding Attorney General William P. Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt of Congress, saying they’ve refused to turn over documents about adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

The public knows that the FBI relied extensively on the Democratic Party-financed dossier, whose list of anti-Trump allegations influenced the bureau’s overall attitude toward the candidate and eventual president. Now, Attorney General William Barr has made it clear he wants to know more: Just how far did the discredited dossier take the FBI into the depths of a nearly three-year Trump investigation? “What were the standards that were applied? What was the evidence?” Mr. Barr told CBS News, adding that his focus is not on the rank-and-file but on senior FBI leaders. Dossier writer Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence...

In an exclusive interview with "CBS This Morning," Attorney General William Barr said he believes special counsel Robert Mueller could have reached a decision on whether President Trump committed obstruction of justice, regardless of long-standing Justice Department policy that prohibits the indictment of a sitting president.  During a nearly hour-long interview in Anchorage, Alaska, CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford pressed the attorney general on a number of issues from obstruction to his new review of the Russia investigation.Below is the full transcript of the interview: JAN CRAWFORD: Mr. Attorney General, thank you very much for sitting down...

In an interview aired Friday on "CBS This Morning," Attorney General William Barr explains why he opened an investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation. He doesn't say what the evidence is, but Barr tells CBS News legal correspondent Jan Crawford that there is evidence that makes him believe senior government officials may have acted improperly to authorize surveillance of President Trump's 2016 campaign. He says that led to "spying" on the campaign. He said the hyper-politicized nature of politics today is a danger to longstanding institutions and he took the job of attorney general because he is at...

Watch Our Expert Panel Discussion: ‘Investigating the Investigators’ Hillary Clinton was Warned Twice against Using Unsecure BlackBerrys and Personal Emails U.S. Government Wastes Billions on ‘Fragmented, Overlapping or Duplicative’ Programs Watch Our Expert Panel Discussion: ‘Investigating the Investigators’ I moderated a Judicial Watch panel of experts this week to probing into the targeting of President Trump and the attacks on our Republican form of government through the illicit use of the spy agencies. The panel also discussed the corruption at the FBI, corrupt handling of the Clinton email investigation, the Obama administration’s hand in the Russia investigation hoax, the...

Federal prosecutors rebuffed a judge’s order to release by Friday highly classified transcripts of discussions that Michael T. Flynn, the president’s former national security adviser, had with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition. The transcripts between Mr. Flynn and Sergey I. Kislyak, formerly Russia’s top diplomat in the United States, were expected to show that they talked in December 2016 about sanctions that the Obama administration had just imposed on Russia. Mr. Flynn initially denied those exchanges about sanctions both to Trump administration officials and the F.B.I. in the weeks after the discussions. The conversations prompted concerns among senior...

May 31, 2019 8:26 p.m. ET Breaking News : *Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google, Sources Say *Justice Department Antitrust Investigation Expected to Examine Google Practices Related to Search and Other Businesses, Sources Say *Federal Trade Commission Investigated Google Several Years Ago, Will Defer to Justice Department This Time, Sources Say (More to come)

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff demanded on Friday that the nation’s intelligence community report to Congress any effort by Attorney General William Barr to declassify national security secrets over its objections. Schiff made his demand in a letter to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, calling on Coats to brief his committee in person and to share any information that Barr has requested as part of a review of the origins of the FBI’s investigation of links between Russia and the Trump campaign. Last month, Barr announced his intention to review the decisions that led to the Russia probe,...

You may recall that about a year into failed Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ tenure with the Trump administration he rebuffed several calls from members of Congress to appoint a U.S. attorney ‘outside the Beltway’ to investigate abuses by the Obama regime and the 2016 Clinton campaign regarding “Spygate.” That attorney, John Huber of Utah, was supposedly a ‘special prosecutor in all but name,’ Sessions said at the time. He claimed Huber will be using all of “his prosecutorial powers” to conduct a wide-ranging investigation into alleged abuses that extend well beyond suspected FISA court improprieties. “I am confident that Mr....

Watch out, folks! The Federalist’s Sean Davis is dragging the beaten hypothetical corpse of Robert Mueller through. He just took the man to the woodshed in his latest piece and rightfully so. The Russia investigation is over. Special Counsel Mueller is done. He’s done talking about it. He directed us to read the report that was compiled after two years of digging and to leave him alone. Oh, and Democrats, go ahead with impeachment wink* wink*. He twisted the words of his investigation’s findings on Russian collusion; none was found. But Mueller phrased it in a way that left it...

It appears that one good contradiction deserves another in the escalating back-and-forth between Attorney General William Barr and former special counsel Robert Mueller. On Wednesday, Mueller — in a very odd and irregular press conference — said that if he and his team of Democrat-aligned lawyers and 50 FBI agents could have proved that POTUS Donald Trump never obstructed justice during their ‘Russian collusion’ witch hunt, they would have said as much in the report Mueller filed with the Justice Department following the probe. Mind you, that’s the legal standard used in virtually every authoritarian country on the planet: Government...

Listening to Hannity a while ago he said Mueller and the DOJ released a statement after Muellers speech yesterday which retracted/clarified some of his talking points. I did a quick search on FR going back to before Mueller's statement and found nothing. Has anyone seen this?

The Department of Justice Inspector General revealed this week that an unnamed former FBI Deputy Assistant Director [DAD] illegally disclosed sealed court information to the media in addition to a number of other violations. "The OIG investigation concluded that the DAD engaged in misconduct when the DAD: (1) disclosed to the media the existence of information that had been filed under seal in federal court, in violation of 18 USC § 401, Contempt of Court; (2) provided without authorization FBI law enforcement sensitive information to reporters on multiple occasions; and (3) had dozens of official contacts with the media...