Free Republic

A former security director for the Senate Intelligence Committee has pleaded guilty to one count of giving a false statement to FBI agents looking into leaks of national security information to several reporters, including one at the New York Times he dated, the Justice Department announced Monday. James A. Wolfe, 58, was in charge of maintaining all classified information coming from the executive branch to the Senate panel. He served as the panel's security director for 29 years. "Did you make a false statement to the FBI?" D.C. district court judge Ketanji B. Jackson asked Wolfe in court on Monday....

The Department of Justice (DOJ) obtained private communications and other personal records of multiple Republican House and Senate staffers who were investigating the department’s role in the origins of the Russia collusion hoax, according to former senior Trump administration official Kash Patel. A recently-revealed subpoena shows that the DOJ sought the records for not only Patel when he was an investigator for then-Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), but also those of Jason Foster, who was at the time chief investigative counsel to then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (I-IA) and was also looking into the DOJ’s role in the hoax.

VIDEO Now that the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz has CONFIRMED the FISA abuse findings of the Nunes Memo, presented by Congressman Devin Nunes in early 2018, this is a good time to look back at those who attacked that memo. Apologies to Nunes are in order but so far none has apologized to him. Hello James Comey! Hello James Clapper! You were horribly WRONG and Nunes was RIGHT.

The weekend release of a highly-redacted version of the FBI's application for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to wiretap onetime Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page has renewed the argument over the Nunes memo — the brief report produced by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes detailing problems in the application. From the time of the memo's release in February, Democrats and some in the press have denounced it as a collection of lies and mischaracterizations. On Saturday night, the denouncing started again. "The only thing the newly released FISA documents show is that Republicans have been lying...

A senior Barack Obama State Department official gave the green light to an FBI agent in 2016 to meet with dossier writer Christopher Steele, a meeting that touched off a relationship that would fuel the ongoing investigation into possible Donald Trump-Russia election collusion. And, the sensational Steele allegation that led to an FBI wiretap on Trump volunteer Carter Page came from “pillow talk” with the lover of a Kremlin official, a new book says. The disclosure that Victoria Nuland started the process is contained in “Russian Roulette,” a book released Tuesday by Yahoo News report Michael Isikoff and Mother Jones...

On a Monday night (February 12th, 2018) episode of Tucker Carlson a democrat member of the House Intelligence committee said something interesting that almost everyone missed. Appearing on the show to joust with Tucker, HPSCI member Eric Swalwell stated: “the House Intel Committee has not interviewed a single witness in over a month”. [Video Here, quote @03:47] This statement is rather enlightening. A month earlier, January 4th, 2018, an agreement was finally made between House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and DOJ Asst. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for complete disclosure of all unreadacted documents.....AND a list of witnesses who Nunes...

With undiminished esteem for my friend David French’s legal acumen, I confess to being underwhelmed by his defense of the Schiff memo. I am going to explain why, but I first want to apologize for the length of this column, which owes to the fact that David’s observations provide an opportunity to address the political context of the congressional investigation, which I have not done much of. . . snip I am at a loss to understand how that could be thought a sufficient description of bias. Bear in mind that, unlike an ordinary federal criminal case, in which the...

Charlie Savage is a clever guy. The New York Times reporter managed to get a full-fledged editorial into the news section of his paper when the controversial Nunes memo was released on Friday. He did it through a journalistic device that is likely to be more widely used in the future as standards of objectivity and fairness continue to wither: an “annotated” version of the original document. Savage clearly isn’t shocked. But he shouldn’t be, at least not outwardly—not in his reporting on the document. His job is to be dispassionate. On the other hand, neither should he reveal his...

A criminal referral from top Senate investigators confirms explosive charges in last week’s House Intelligence Committee memo regarding abuse of surveillance authorities at the FBI and Department of Justice. It also reveals a host of problems arising from the bureau’s cooperation with foreign investigator Christopher Steele, who was working on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The eight-page memo from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) includes underlying evidence to support the claims.“It appears the FBI relied on admittedly uncorroborated information, funded by and obtained for Secretary Clinton’s presidential campaign,...

Former C.I.A. Director John Brennan on Sunday chastised the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee on Sunday for his handling of a bombshell memo that delved into the secretive world of surveillance courts, saying the push to expose bias at the FBI was one-sided and shut out opposing views. Mr. Brennan, who served under President Obama, said Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican, could have held hearings to expose potential problems at the FBI, but instead put out “very selective, cherry-picked” memo without allowing Democrats to offer a rebuttal memo. “I never, ever saw the Democrats do something like this...

Democrat says moves that upend Russia probes will spark ‘constitutional crisis’Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin warned President Trump and his GOP allies on Sunday not to use a bombshell memo on the FBI’s snooping powers to upend independent probes into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign, saying it could spark a “constitutional crisis.” Mr. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said he’s concerned that Mr. Trump will use the Republican-drafted memo to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the scope of the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russia’s actions and whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the foreign...

The Republicans have now released the memo containing their version of what is in the controversial FSIA application. Not surprisingly, the Democrats have a different version. It should be easy to decide whose “truth” is more credible: Let the American public see the application itself — instead of second-hand, partisan accounts — and let us decide for ourselves. The problem with that obvious solution is that the application is currently classified. But classification should never be used – as it often is – for political benefit or to protect agencies or individuals from just criticism. Let a nonpartisan expert decide...

With President Trump’s blessing, House Republicans released a declassified bombshell memo Friday revealing that the FBI relied on a partisan and unverified anti- Trump dossier to justify spying on a Trump campaign aide during the presidential race in 2016. As a result of that decision, here are the winners and losers: WINNERS President Donald Trump : The memo paints a partisan bias atop the FBI against the president. Also the dubious way the FBI initially obtained a FISA warrant for Trump aide Carter Page will likely impact public perception of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling.

Friday on CNN’s “Wolf,” host Wolf Blitzer harangued Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, for releasing the much-anticipated FISA memo and doing so not at the same time as the Democratic Party minority memo, so that a side-by-side comparison could be made. Stewart dismissed the criticism, but later in the segment, Blitzer accused Stewart and the GOP of allowing Russian President Vladimir Putin to succeed given the member created doubt in U.S. government agencies. “So, Putin has succeeded because that’s what’s happening right now,” he said. “The whole nature of the support for the intelligence...

Yes, most of the MSM has always been to the left, but there used to be some daylight between the two. In the last 5 to 10 years, though, it's simply merged with the DNC. Right now much of the time, you can't even tell the MSM's "straight news" on Trump and politics from opinion pieces. Even before seeing the classified memo, the MSM were calling its release "political" and defending Dems. They automatically take the DNC position, and that includes when they pushed the DNC line on "Russia" and pushes for Trump's impeachment though Mueller investigation has uncovered nothing.

Rep. Devin Nunes’s infamous memo — the document numerous House Republicans claimed would demonstrate fundamental anti-Trump corruption at the FBI — was released early Friday afternoon. The entire thing is three and a half pages and only takes a few minutes to read closely and carefully. After doing that, there is only one conclusion a fair reader could draw: There is absolutely nothing here. There is no proof in the memo that the FBI is biased against Trump, no proof of abuse of surveillance powers by the FBI, and no proof that the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to...

Republicans released a long-awaited memo Friday detailing government surveillance abuses, showing that the FBI would not have obtained a surveillance warrant for the Trump campaign without using information from a dubious partisan dossier. Here are six take aways: ⦁ The FBI relied heavily on Democratic Party dossier to obtain three surveillance warrants before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The FBI did not tell the court the information came from a Democratic Party-financed opposition research. FBI knew source.

...It didn’t take long for a report to emerge claiming that Russian-sponsored Twitter accounts and bots were the real driving force behind the viral call for the release of the memo. Without worrying about the veracity of this convenient claim, all the usual suspects giddily spread the story across social media — probably because they have such a deep reverence for truth in the Era of Trump. The report also prompted Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Adam Schiff, both Democrats, to pull out every fearmongering catchphrase available to demand that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg perform...