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In 1980, 15-year-old Amy Carter left a burnt cake in the oven of the White House’s family quarters in a reflex of childish revenge for her father’s landslide loss to Ronald Reagan. In 2017, Barack Obama and Joe Biden avenged Donald Trump’s surprise victory over Hillary Clinton by leaving what they claim was a Russian agent in the West Wing. That conclusion inevitably follows if one accepts as credible the FBI’s supposed predicates for launching the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the Trump campaign and the four related probes into George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn. On July...

Announces dedicated webpage related to Committee oversight efforts WASHINGTON – The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), today released declassified confidential human source transcripts related to the Crossfire Hurricane operation. In addition to the transcripts, the Committee released other material related to the Committee’s investigation into Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) actions leading up to and during the Crossfire Hurricane operation, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant process. “I’m committed to being as transparent as possible about the circumstances surrounding FISA abuse. The goal is to make sure it...

Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell declassified a slew of footnotes from Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse. Yesterday, Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell declassified a slew of footnotes from Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse. In a cover letter to Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson, the Republican senators who had pushed for the declassification, Grenell noted that “transparency is now needed more than ever.” Grenell added that Attorney General William Barr concurred in the declassification decision as it relates to DOJ interests. Wednesday’s declassification follows...

A newly declassified transcript calls into question the entire Crossfire Hurricane investigation: Why was it started, and why did it continue? Attorney General William Barr said last week that “the evidence shows that we’re not dealing with just mistakes or sloppiness” in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. Rather, “there is something far more troubling here.” “Without any basis,” Barr added in his sit-down interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, “they started this investigation of [Trump’s] campaign, and even more concerning actually is what happened after the campaign, a whole pattern of events while he was president to sabotage his presidency —...

These facts establish the FBI used Russia’s meddling with the 2016 election as a pretext to investigate Donald Trump and the special counsel’s office was complicit in this ploy. On Friday, the Department of Justice released newly declassified information from an inspector general report on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse, revealing for the first time that the FBI had received information indicating the Christopher Steele dossier contained Russian disinformation. The newly unredacted portions of the IG’s report also confirmed there was no “network of sources” backing up Steele’s reporting. While both revelations provide further fodder for attacking the Carter...

For anyone who is paying attention, it’s beginning to look more and more like there won’t be any serious consequences for wrongdoing inside the FBI and DOJ. Yes, Attorney General Barr understands the critical nature of all this. The Durham investigation grinds on at glacial speed. They face a herd of musk ox. The insiders have formed a circle, horns out. Insiders are clearly signaling that they are far more interested in defending their institutions than in defending the truth. If there were any serious attempt to hold the bad apples accountable, we would have seen evidence of it long...

Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) are working to kill a House deal to reauthorize expiring intelligence programs and reform the surveillance court, throwing up an eleventh hour roadblock to the agreement. The two libertarian-minded Republicans, who are close allies of President Trump's, are urging Trump to veto the House agreement, which pairs a reauthorization of expiring intelligence programs with broader changes to the court associated with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). "The president I think really would like to see real reform, and I think the open question is whether or not he'll take what [Attorney...

In November of 2019 buried deep in the congressional budget Continuing Resolution (CR) was a short-term extension to reauthorize the FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], all parts of the Patriot Act. As a result of the FISA CR inclusion the terminal deadline was pushed to March 15, 2020. ~ Something has to happen this week The Senate is scheduled to recess March 13, 2020. Additionally, the DOJ/FBI response to the FISA court order (due February 5th) has still not been made public....

President Donald Trump wants to see reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance process before he endorses extending spying powers that are slated to expire in less than two weeks, according to one of the senators who met with Trump on the topic. Trump “made it exceedingly clear” that he won’t accept a straight reauthorization, said Sen. Rand Paul, (R-Ky.), who has led efforts to curtail the federal government’s ability to spy on Americans. “The president said he’s not signing without something happening,” Paul told reporters after the nearly 90-minute meeting with top lawmakers. “He pushed back very...

The New York Times admitted on Thursday that the Obama administration deployed multiple spies against the Trump campaign in 2016, confirming recent comments by Attorney General William Barr that 'spying did occur' during the campaign. Following months of angry claims by journalists and Democratic operatives that the Obama administration never spied on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, The New York Times admitted Thursday that multiple overseas intelligence assets were deployed against associates of the Republican nominee. It is not the first time the Times has revealed widespread spying operations against the campaign. In addition to noting that long-time informant Stefan...

A stunning April 2017 report from the FISA Court received no publicity until nearly a year after it was released to the public. The report covered results of an investigation or audit into FISA searches made by Obama’s NSA, FBI and DOJ during Obama’s time in office. On April 26, 2017, an unsealed FISA Court Ruling unveiled a number of criminal activities that Barack Obama’s FBI, NSA and DOJ participated in during his time in office. The report was actually completed before the 2016 election. The FISA Court Ruling showed widespread abuse of the FISA mandate. According to the report,...

The U.S. Founders never would have adopted Chuck Todd's dangerous proposition that bureaucrats be allowed to operate a police force without political accountability. So much of the drama of the last three years of the Trump administration is about the conflict between the Constitution, which requires political oversight of the bureaucracy, and the Resistance’s strongly held view that political oversight of the administrative state is evil.The Russia collusion hoax was perpetrated by bureaucrats who admitted they were motivated by a a belief that their foreign policy vision was more appropriate and legitimate than the one chosen by the American people...

The two lawmakers suggested in a letter to Attorney General William Barr that the footnotes contradict key claims made in Inspector General Michael Horowitz's declassified version of his spy abuses investigative report. Two top Republican senators on Tuesday alleged that claims made in a report from Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz mischaracterized evidence about the government’s secret surveillance of the Trump campaign during and after the 2016 presidential election. Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., wrote to Attorney General William Barr on Tuesday demanding that the Justice Department declassify four footnotes in the inspector...

Last week, President Trump triggered the left when he tweeted a Photoshopped picture that portrayed former President Barack Obama perched midair outside Trump Tower, binoculars and listening device in hand.The liberal outlet Vox condemned the president for his “increasingly bad tweets,” before declaring “there’s no evidence the Obama administration spied on Trump.” Vox then regurgitated the false narrative that, while the FBI did surveil former Trump foreign policy advisor Carter Page, “that didn’t happen until after Page left the campaign.” For years, conservatives tried to correct the record, noting that a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) order gave the...

While it may come as news to Schiff, 'most Americans' probably aren't watching this risible proceeding. But for those of us who are, we know for a fact Democratic actors haven't been 'impartial.' Just when you thought Rep. Adam Schiff had reached maximum sleaze, word breaks he likely mischaracterized evidence related to President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, achieving new heights of corruption for ol’ “schifty Schiff.”Last week, Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to Democratic House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler of New York, summarizing evidence brought forth by Lev Parnas, a former associate of Trump’s...

Spy Court Picks FISA Abuse Denier To Tackle FISA Abuse The appointment of a former official who served as an apologist for the FBI signals that the court isn't particularly concerned about the civil liberty violations catalogued by Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Mollie HemingwayBy Mollie Hemingway JANUARY 12, 2020 The nation’s top spy court appointed an Obama-era Justice Department official who has denied and downplayed FBI surveillance abuse to assess the FBI’s response to a scathing new report cataloguing problems with how the agency secured authority to spy on a Donald Trump campaign affiliate.

The report established that the special counselÂ’s office was complicit in the FISA abuse, the probe was a witch hunt, and its report was a cover-up for systematic government malfeasance. Shortly after the release of the special counsel report last year, I posited that Robert MuellerÂ’s failure to investigate whether Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election by feeding dossier author Christopher Steele disinformation established that Mueller was either incompetent or a political hack. Now, with the release of the inspector generalÂ’s report on FISA abuse, we know the answer: He was both.The IGÂ’s report on the U.S. Department of...

Much has been missed, including one significant misrepresentation contained in all four of the Carter Page FISA applications—an inaccuracy even the IG’s team overlooked. Left-leaning politicians and the press spent more than three years pushing the Russia collusion hoax. Yet, following the inspector general’s release of his 478-page report on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse, after making quick mention of the top-line findings, the media moved on. As a result, much has been missed, including one significant misrepresentation contained in all four of the Carter Page FISA applications—an inaccuracy even the IG’s team overlooked. Two passages, separated by more...

Robert Storch, inspector general for the National Security Agency, called for an expansion of his office's subpoena authority to compel telecommunications companies who send records to the government to participate in interviews about ongoing investigations and audits. The NSA has come under fire from members of Congress and civil liberty groups over a June 2018 disclosure by the agency that "technical irregularities" led to the overcollection of hundreds of millions of phone records sent by telecommunications providers in violation of limits imposed by the 2015 USA Freedom Act. https://fcw.com/articles/2018/11/19/nsa-oig-subpoena-power.aspx?m=2

In 2018, the U.S. government filed 1,117 final applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court for authority for the FBI to conduct electronic surveillance and physical searches. One application was withdrawn. One other was denied. The remaining 1,115 were granted.Hours before the FISA court issued a December 17 order openly declaring that it could no longer trust any of the sworn statements the FBI had submitted to justify spying on Americans, The New York Times published an opinion article by William Webster, a former director of both the FBI and the CIA. Webster wrote, “Today, the integrity of...