Free Republic

Former Attorney General Bill Barr did not improperly pressure prosecutors to reduce sentencing recommendations for political activist Roger Stone, according to a new government watchdog report. The exoneration of Barr came more than four years after a deluge of media reports alleging wrongdoing. However, J.P. Cooney, a Justice Department official now serving as Special Counsel Jack Smith’s top deputy, cultivated a politically toxic environment, disseminated baseless conspiracy theories about Trump and his political appointees, and engaged in unprofessional conduct as he oversaw the team making sentencing recommendations, according to the same report. Cooney is mentioned (as the “Fraud and Public...

DEVELOPING: Why's IG Horowitz quietly "revising" key findings in his report & posting new iterations of original version on IG website? Why's he not highlighting the effectively secret revisions thru press releases & letters notifying Congress &the public of the post-pub changes?

Last month presiding FISA judge Rosemary Collyer announced she would be stepping down early due to ‘health issues.’ Chief Justice Roberts tapped Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee to replace Collyer. On Friday, Judge Boasberg announced in an order that he has appointed Obama-era national security leader at the DOJ David S. Kris as amicus counsel to review the reforms the FBI will be making to its FISA application process. This order was in response to the FBI abusing the FISA process after it obtained a total of four FISA warrants on Carter Page. The government had until Friday January...

The report of the I.G.'s findings on the use of FISA in the FBI Crossfire Hurricane investigation is an outrage. As a 22 year FBI Agent, I have personally conducted multiple investigations using both Title III "wiretaps" and FISA authorized intercepts. From this perspective, I can only see two possible interpretations of the actions of the FBI and DOJ. Either scenario should anger and frighten every fair minded citizen who takes the time to read the report and understand its implications. . . snip If the heinous abuses documented in the I.G.s report result in a weakening or loss of...

Indications are that the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the Trump campaign may not have been what has been revealed to date. Two facts buried in the recently released DOJ IG Report have explosive implications and strongly suggest that the Crossfire Hurricane investigation was a joint CIA/FBI Operation. The IG Report reveals that Russian Oligarch 1 was the “subject of a Crossfire Hurricane case.” See page 194 of the FISA report: However, the IG Report states that the FBI only opened Crossfire Hurricane cases against four individuals, Page, Papadopoulos, Manafort and Flynn. This was noted in the first page of the...

President Trump on Sunday accused Justice Department Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz of overlooking bias within the FBI and returned to his claim that "Obama knew everything" about the bureau's investigation of Trump campaign associates. Trump leveled the accusation after the IG released a report last week saying the FBI did not act out of political motivation when investigating Trump’s 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia. Trump honed in on the fact that Horowitz was appointed by President Obama in his tweet. “As bad as the I.G. Report is for the FBI and others, and it is really bad, remember that...

President Trump on Sunday went after Barack Obama and DOJ IG Michael Horowitz, who was appointed by Obama. “As bad as the I.G. Report is for the FBI and others, and it is really bad, remember that I.G. Horowitz was appointed by Obama. There was tremendous bias and guilt exposed, so obvious, but Horowitz couldn’t get himself to say it. Big credibility loss. Obama knew everything!” Trump said in a tweet.

When the Department of Justice inspector general released his report on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse, coverage focused on the top-line findings contained in the executive summary. Then the news cycle whizzed by, leaving many details discussed throughout the 480-page tome unexplored. One significant gap in media coverage concerns the potential complicity of former FBI Director James Comey in the FISA abuse—a possibility the IG report hints at in several spots. The first suggestion that something was amiss with Comey’s conduct came early in Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report, when the IG’s office spoke of the methodology underlying the FISA...

The newly released report by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, along with his groundbreaking testimony before Congress, noted the material failures of the FBI—“not only the operational team, but also of the managers and supervisors, including senior officials, in the chain of command”—with regard to the FISA warrant application on Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The inspector general’s findings were so significant that he recommended the FBI’s “entire chain of command” outlined in his report to the DOJ for “consideration of how to assess and address their performance failures.” According to Horowitz, these failures prevented the Office of...

RUSH: I have a major dilemma today, folks. By the way, greetings. Rush Limbaugh and three hours of play-by-play of the news is upcoming. Happy to have you here with us. It’s great that you’re here, and it’s great that I’m here. We look forward to it each day. 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program. My dilemma is that what I think is the biggest and most important thing, story, whatever, that explains everything else, has become old news. And my dilemma is, do I continue to inform, educate, comment about it, or do I leave it...

On Friday, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee approved two articles of impeachment against President Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The committee vote sends the question to the full House, with a vote expected later this week. That fast timeline won’t allow for much consideration of the question, however, forcing folks to rely on House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s 300-page report detailing his committee’s “impeachment inquiry.” But following last week’ release of the inspector general’s report on FISA abuse that proved nearly every sentence wrong in Schiff’s last high-profile report (his self-titled “Correcting the Record—The Russia...

JUST AS WAS TRUE when the Mueller investigation closed without a single American being charged with criminally conspiring with Russia over the 2016 election, Wednesday’s issuance of the long-waited report from the Department of Justice’s Inspector General reveals that years of major claims and narratives from the U.S. media were utter frauds. Before evaluating the media component of this scandal, the FBI’s gross abuse of its power – its serial deceit – is so grave and manifest that it requires little effort to demonstrate it. In sum, the IG Report documents multiple instances in which the FBI – in order...

FULL TITLE: OOPSIE! Sharyl Attkisson points out what Horowitz REALLY said in report about ‘bias’ in FBI investigation and WOW Sharyl Attkisson made a very good point about how ‘interesting’ it is to watch how the media spins something and then take a look for yourself at the original source. Especially with something like IG Horowitz’s report from earlier this week … you know, the one the media swore vindicated the FBI? About that … 1) Always interesting to hear and read the news and then actually get the original sourcing. IG Horowitz says he did not claim there was...

The FBI’s top counterintelligence agent, Bill Priestap, originally wanted controversial FBI agent Peter Strzok removed from the team investigating unsubstantiated claims of collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the recently released Justice Department’s Inspector General report revealed. Priestap’s request was overruled by former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, who served under disgraced ex-FBI chief James Comey, the report further related. The report related that Steinbach was particularly concerned “about Strzok and [FBI attorney] Lisa Page working together because he was aware of instances where they bypassed the chain of command to advise McCabe about case related information that...

The essence of a coup, which some might refer to as covert action, is the hidden hand. One does not announce that a foreign power is overthrowing the government and installing a new government. One pulls strings as if from behind a curtain, making events that are all part of a carefully orchestrated plan appear disconnected, spontaneous and serendipitous. As I read through the recently released IG report for the second time, as someone with a great deal of experience in military and intelligence matters, I see that hand everywhere. Per the IG report, a single report is delivered to...

The Inspector General’s Report on 2016 FBI Spying Reveals a Scandal of Historic Magnitude: Not Only for the FBI but Also the U.S. Media

It is hard to believe that the run-up to the presidential-election year has plumbed such a depth of farcical degradation. It must be that Trump’s influence has contributed to unserious responses, but he can’t be blamed for the unutterable nonsense of his opponents and the straight men of the political class that has absorbed the shock of the Trump phenomenon. Monday, December 9, had been much anticipated. Congressman Jerry Nadler, who has not been able to utter a sentence in the last three years that did not contain the word “impeachment,” gaveled to order his asinine Judiciary Committee hearings to...

Inspector General Michael Horowitz's long-awaited report this week on FBI and Justice Department surveillance abuses does not provide the name of an unidentified FBI supervisory special agent (SSA) who made a series of apparent oversights in the bureau's so-called "Crossfire Hurricane" probe into the Trump campaign. However, a review of Horowitz's findings leaves little doubt that the unnamed SSA is Joe Pientka -- someone who could soon play a prominent role in the ongoing prosecution of Michael Flynn, as the former Trump national security adviser fights to overturn his guilty plea on a single charge of making false statements. Specifically,...

Thanks to the Department of Justice IG report -- the one released on Monday -- we now know for certain what was, for those paying attention, fairly obvious for a long time -- in fact, from the beginning. We now know the Steele dossier played a central role in the genesis of the beginning of the Russia hoax. The dossier was used to justify extensive spying on an innocent American citizen; that would be former naval officer and Annapolis graduate, Carter Page. The top two leaders at the FBI were closely involved in the decision to do this. Other powerful...

Well, it looks like some efforts have paid off. In an unusual update two days after the IG report was published, the IG modifies the report content. See Update Notification Below: (CHANGES PRESENTED AT CTH)