Free Republic

FBI Director Christopher Wray told the federal surveillance court in a letter Friday that he “deeply regrets” the bureau’s many errors in the process to obtain surveillance warrants on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. “The FBI has the utmost respect for this Court, and deeply regrets the errors and omissions identified by the OIG,” Wray wrote in a letter to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). A judge on the FISC ordered the FBI on Dec. 17 to respond by Friday with a roadmap on how the bureau plans to address the problems identified in a Justice Department inspector...

President Trump called out FBI Director Christopher Wray on Saturday morning for his weak response to FISA abuse and the illegal spying on Trump’s 2016 campaign. FBI Director Chris Wray announced that the FBI’s response to the agency’s FISA Abuse and the criminal spying on the Trump campaign will result in extra training. He sent out out a training video. And no one will be disciplined for the criminal acts.

Former DOJ official David Kris was picked Friday to oversee the FBI’s reforms of its surveillance procedures in the wake of a damning inspector general’s report. Kris was an ardent defender of the FBI’s surveillance of Carter Page. He was also a vocal critic of Republicans who suggested the FBI misled the surveillance court in its applications to wiretap Page. In one essay, Kris endorsed a suggestion that Rep. Devin Nunes should face obstruction of justice charges. Nunes told the Daily Caller News Foundation the choice of Kris is “shocking and inexplicable.” former Justice Department official picked Friday to oversee...

Devin Nunes tells @dailycaller it is "shocking and inexplicable" that the FISA Court picked David Kris to oversee FBI's FISA reforms. Kris has been entirely dismissive of allegations that FBI misled the court to surveil Carter Page.

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...

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 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has stunned court-watchers by selecting David Kris -- a former Obama administration lawyer who has appeared on "The Rachel Maddow Show" and written extensively in support of the FBI's surveillance practices on the left-wing blog Lawfare -- to oversee the FBI's implementation of reforms in the wake of a damning Department of Justice Inspector general report last year. The development on Friday, first reported by independent journalist Mike Cernovich, has roiled Republicans who have demanded accountability at the FBI. House Intelligence Commitee ranking member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., told The Daily Caller that Kris' appointment...

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has stunned court-watchers by selecting David Kris -- a former Obama administration lawyer who has appeared on "The Rachel Maddow Show" and written extensively in support of the FBI's surveillance practices on the left-wing blog Lawfare -- to oversee the FBI's implementation of reforms in the wake of a damning Department of Justice Inspector general report last year. The development on Friday, first reported by independent journalist Mike Cernovich, has roiled Republicans who have demanded accountability at the FBI. House Intelligence Commitee ranking member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., told The Daily Caller that Kris' appointment...

David Kris served as Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice under President Obama and Attorney General Holder. He drew on his prestige as a former senior official in the Department of Justice to disparage Rep. Devin Nunes in his exposure of the FBI’s misconduct in the Russia haox and assure anyone who would listen to him that all was in order. He is an apologist for FBI misconduct who gives the Department of Justice Inspector General report on the FBI’s FISA misconduct the stupidly credulous reading that absolves the FBI of political bias in the matter. Who better...

Maddow Meltdown: In Defense To OAN Lawsuit, Host Argues Her Words Are Not Facts

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow claimed Tuesday night that the "implosion" of the National Rifle Association (NRA) would be the biggest political news story if it weren't for the impeachment of President Trump. Maddow began by touting the NRA's "legendary" power and major influence over politicians -- and then highlighted the rather turbulent year for the prominent guns rights organization. This included the revelation of Russia agent Maria Butina's attempt to infiltrate the group during the 2016 election and reports of the nonprofit's suspicious spending, which sparked an avalanche of lawsuits and investigations.

That there are scoundrels in government will come as no surprise to anyone. All governments. Always have been and always will be, despite our best efforts to remove them. They are like cockroaches, the ultimate survivors. Scoundrels, like a virus, hijack the nominal purpose of government and use it to their own ends, entrenching their positions, lining their pockets, and growing their power. All societies have sought to eradicate scoundrels in government through various measures, a hopeless but necessary effort. These measures work to some extent, but the end result is just to select for sneakier and craftier scoundrels in...

The CIA primarily leaks PR spin to the Washington Post. The FBI primarily leaks PR spin to the New York Times; and the State Dept. primarily leaks PR spin to CNN. This narrative distribution model is the one constant in an ever changing universe. Cue the audio visual… Obviously the prior Washington Post effort to conflate the Durham investigation with the Horowitz investigation didn’t get the desired result. As a consequence it only took a few days before the Washington Post was back at it (Matt Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett again) to try obfuscation 2.0; this time with Joseph Mifsud....

Here’s a question in return: Guess who’s looking to recover from the collapse of the Russia-collusion theory? A “source”* tells me that this is more an exposé of MSNBC’s desperation than of actual reality. I’m betting that my source is more solid than Lawrence O’Donnell’s, but YMMV.Even Business Insider treats this with asbestos gloves, calling O’Donnell’s report “rumor” rather than, y’know, news. And the reaction from Rachel Maddow pretty much emulates what everyone else thinks of O’Donnell’s report: BREAKING: MSNBC reports that Donald Trump obtained business loans by having Russian oligarchs as co-signers: "The source close to Deutsche Bank...

MSNBC star Rachel Maddow was on the defensive Thursday night after multiple reports said the Justice Department investigation into the origins of the Russia inquiry had shifted into a criminal probe. Maddow, who had beeen the face of MSNBC's coverage of the two-year investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, was baffled at the opening of her show Thursday night by the ongoing investigation from U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Attorney General William Barr had appointed earlier this year. "This is the news that honestly, we've been sort of expecting for some time or thinking that if...

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow – a pioneer of Putin-ate-my-homework journalism – has predictably mused that Donald Trump is considering pulling troops out of Afghanistan on the orders of Russia’s president. The evidence speaks for itself. In segment on her critically-acclaimed show, “Watch Me Scream ‘Russia’ Until I Dislocate My Jaw”, Maddow made an adroit observation of seismic proportions: Reports that Donald Trump is mulling a partial withdrawal from Afghanistan emerged only hours after Vladimir Putin said that the US keeps promising to leave the country but never does! In layman’s terms: Putin ordered Trump to pull troops out of Afghanistan, during...

A new report about the relationship between President Donald Trump and Fox News alleges that hosts Chris Wallace and Martha MacCallum criticized and mocked Trump during a closed-door meeting last month. Fox News hosts Bret Baier, Chris Wallace, and Martha MacCallum attended an event in Manhattan to assure advertisers that “Trump doesn’t own” them, according to a piece published Sunday in the New York Times. The Times report continues: “‘Contrary to the opinion of some people, he’s not our boss,’ Ms. MacCallum said, marveling at Mr. Trump’s criticism of Fox News for airing interviews with Democratic presidential candidates. ‘It is...

When the NY Times, Washington Post, CNN and other fact-challenged news outlets reported a few months ago that the oceans were warming at a catastrophic rate due to climate change, they all missed a glaring math error in the original science paper. The paper, co-authored by Ralph Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, was published in the science journal Nature. It erroneously claimed that ocean temperatures were skyrocketing at a rate that was 60 percent higher than the IPCC’s known rate of ocean temperature trends. But the paper suffered from a glaring mathematical error that has since been exposed....

Mere hours after I submitted my last column arguing that Robert Mueller must be called to testify, Rachel Maddow took to the air to make the exact counter-case that I outlined and refuted in my column. No surprises there. We predicted it.The past few days of news coverage have confirmed that the corporate leftist media and the Democrats are hellbent on uncritically warping every fact and statement to support their effort to forcibly remove a democratically elected president and to demonize anyone who may stand in their way. Reality be damned.In a civil society, citizens may be entitled to their opinions but not to their own...

<p>WASHINGTON — Everyone here is keyed up for the Big One.</p> <p>The One that’s going to finally bring Donald Trump down.</p> <p>As soon as the news broke Wednesday night in The Washington Post that a whistle-blower had accused the president of making some sort of nefarious “promise” during a call to a foreign leader, the hive erupted.</p>