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The Justice Department spied on two House members and several congressional staffers in a leak investigation without telling the courts, the agency's inspector general found in a sweeping investigation released Tuesday. As a result, the department obtained phone records from the two members of Congress and 43 staff members including President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, who worked as a staffer on the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee at the time. The department initiated the probe to investigate leaks to the media of FBI classified information as part of the now-discredited Trump-Russia probe which had recently been shared...

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Wednesday testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government about the FBI’s handling of security clearances for whistleblowers. Over three and a half years ago, Horowitz said his department was working on a review of January 6 and claimed it would release a report of its findings. Horowitz, an Obama appointee, told lawmakers on Wednesday that his department ‘paused’ its January 6 review because of ongoing criminal work. Congressman Massie asked Horowitz why it has taken him almost 4 years and won’t come out before the election. “We...

An FBI supervisor is blowing the whistle on his own organization, alleging to the Justice Department's chief watchdog and Congress that the bureau has been improperly suspending or revoking the security clearances of agents it believes hold conservative political views.The new whistleblower's allegations surfaced Tuesday in correspondence obtained by "Just the News" that was sent to the House and Senate Judiciary committees and DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, dramatically claiming that as a supervisory special agent he witnessed efforts by senior FBI brass to target employees who supported Donald Trump or opposed COVID-19 vaccines."If an FBI employee fit a certain...

The U.S. Department of Justice's Inspector General Michael Horowitz maintains that the FBI did not commit any wrongdoing or demonstrate hostility toward religion by circulating an internal document warning about connections between "racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists" and "radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology." Horowitz submitted a report to several committees of U.S. Congress Thursday. The document looks into the "actions and events, including any underlying policy direction" that served as the basis for the FBI Richmond Field Office circulating a memo in January 2023 addressing a purported link between "Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists (RMVEs) and 'Radical Traditionalist Catholic (RTC)'...

An attorney representing some of the women who say they are survivors of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein sent a letter to Justice Department officials demanding an investigation into what she says is the FBI's "seriously bungled examination" of the late financier. Lawyer Jennifer Freeman, an attorney with Marsh Law Firm who says she is "counsel to many survivors of the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking conspiracy," wrote a letter last week to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. "The FBI utterly failed to investigate serious allegations involving Epstein’s, and perhaps others', child...

John Durham wants to use internal instant messages from an FBI analyst embroiled in the Hunter Biden saga in his trial against Christopher Steele’s main dossier source, Igor Danchenko. Danchenko, a Russian-born, U.S.-based lawyer, was charged by Durham last year with five counts tied to alleged lies he told the bureau about the Trump dossier, and he has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers revealed Thursday some of what Durham plans to use in the October trial, including Microsoft Lync chats from a bureau analyst who interviewed the Russian national in 2017 and went on to get mixed up in the...

The FBI confiscated the phone of GOP Rep Scott Perry while he was traveling with his family. Perry said he was approached by 3 FBI agents with a warrant for his cell phone — the FBI had made no attempt to contact his lawyers or him to get the cell phone. (snip) House Judiciary Committee Republicans are now opening an investigation into DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz over his involvement in examining the cell phone. In a letter sent by Jim Jordan, he said it “creates a serious conflict of interest for the OIG in reviewing the Department’s actions.” Jordan...

A new court filing by special counsel John Durham reveals that Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz concealed crucial information from Durham in connection with the ongoing prosecution of Michael Sussmann, a former attorney to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. The filing also reveals that Horowitz failed to disclose that his office is in possession of two cellphones used by former FBI general counsel James Baker. The phones may contain information that’s important to the Sussmann case, as well as to a separate criminal leak investigation of Baker that Durham personally conducted between 2017 and 2019. Horowitz first...

Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a damning report on Thursday chastising the Federal Bureau of Investigation for “widespread” violations in the intelligence agency’s applications for searches and surveillance filed through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. “The FBI’s Woods Procedures are designed to ensure FISA applications are ‘scrupulously accurate’ and require agents to document support for all factual assertions contained in them. However, our audit found numerous instances where this did not occur,” the Justice Department report states. In the newly released audit, Horowitz detailed how “the FBI was not meeting the expectations of its own protocols” by failing to comply...

The Justice Department’s internal watchdog said Thursday the FBI failed to support claims it made in almost 200 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications to monitor American citizens. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a scathing report saying the FBI ignored its own Woods Procedure — the set of rules the bureau follows to ensure its applications for secret warrants are accurate. Inspector general investigators uncovered at least 183 instances in which the Woods File — the documentation intended to back up the FBI‘s argument for surveillance — was missing, destroyed or incomplete.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said the agency's internal watchdog would investigate the seizure of data of Democratic House lawmakers and journalists during leak investigations. Horowitz said in a statement Friday the investigation "will examine the Department’s compliance with applicable DOJ policies and procedures, and whether any such uses, or the investigations, were based upon improper considerations," according to The Washington Post. The announcement follows Senate Democratic leaders Friday demanding Trump administration Attorneys General Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions testify about the seizures of data from House Democrats in 2017 and 2018 – following the release of a news...

Michael Horowitz, the (Justice Department inspector general) who wrote the Dec. 9, 2019, Review of Four FISA Applications, recently reaffirmed his earlier statements that Trump fired two inspectors general “for doing their jobs” and called Trump’s presidency “a challenging time … particularly in the last year” during a Feb. 10 ( online discussion) hosted by Harvard Law School and moderated by Jack Goldsmith.[snip]Neither man acknowledged Trump’s early actions in shutting down travel from China on Jan. 31, 2020, nor did Horowitz exhibit any signs of disagreement with Goldsmith and Woodward, although he was clearly more careful with his wording.At one...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department’s inspector general is launching an investigation to examine whether any former or current department officials “engaged in an improper attempt” to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.</p><p>Inspector General Michael Horowitz said Monday that the investigation will investigate allegations concerning the conduct of former and current Justice Department officials but will not extend to other government officials.</p>

President Donald Trump appeared to indicate on Thursday that Attorney General William Barr has more than enough evidence to indict members of the Obama administration for spying on the Trump campaign in 2016, including former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden. During a lengthy and wide-ranging interview with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo Thursday morning — in which the headline news was that he would not participate in a virtual debate — the president also dropped the potential bombshell that the Department of Justice has "plenty" of evidence to go after Obama administration officials. "These people should be...

An internal audit of 29 warrant applications submitted by the FBI to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court found only minor clerical errors in a process that has come under heavy political scrutiny in recent years. The findings were revealed in a court filing Wednesday and stem from an independent review of the FBI's application process for surveillance warrants by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. The DOJ watchdog concluded in a report earlier this year that the FBI had made over a dozen errors in its applications to look into Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to President Trump's 2016...

A top government watchdog group obtained 136 pages of never before publicized emails between former FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and one in particular appears to refer to a confidential informant inside the White House in 2017, according to a press release from Judicial Watch. Those emails, some of which are heavily redacted, reveal that “Strzok, Page and top bureau officials in the days prior to and following President Donald Trump’s inauguration discussing a White House counterintelligence briefing that could “play into” the FBI’s “investigative strategy.” Moreover, another email sent by Strzok to Bill Priestap, the Former Assistant...

Boom, again. – This afternoon, AG William Barr sent a scalding letter to SDNY U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, notifying him that, since he refused to gracefully resign when given a chance, he is fired. Here’s the letter: Image In case you can’t see the photo properly, here is the text: " " I was surprised and quite disappointed by the press statement you released last night. As we discussed, I wanted the opportunity to choose a distinguished New York lawyer, Jay Clayton, to nominate as United States Attorney and was hoping for your cooperation to facilitate a smooth transition. When...

 

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 —...