Tag: FBI

U.S. recovers millions in cryptocurrency paid to Colonial Pipeline hackers

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U.S. investigators have recovered $2.3 million worth of cryptocurrency paid as a ransom to the cybercrime group responsible for the attack that shut down Colonial Pipeline last month, the Justice Department announced Monday.

Driving the news: Colonial Pipeline CEO Joseph Blount told the Wall Street Journal he authorized a $4.4 million ransom payment to the DarkSide cybercrime group on May 7th in an attempt to restore service of the largest refined fuel pipeline in the U.S.

  • The company, however, had notified the FBI and followed instructions to help U.S. investigators track the payment, CNN reported. Continue reading.

FBI probes possible connections between extremist groups at heart of Capitol violence

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The FBI investigation of the Capitol riot has begun to zero in on potential key figures in the chaos, including some self-styled militia members who in some videos and photos appear to be planning or urging further violence.

Though no one has been charged with leading or directing the violence, investigators are working to find out whether certain individuals helped coordinate aspects of the attack, before and during the chaos, or were merely opportunistic instigators.

In nearly two weeks since the assault, the Justice Department has charged more than 100 people — mostly individuals who revealed themselves as participating in the Jan. 6 riot through social media boasts. But the weekend arrests of people with alleged ties to extremist groups reflects the FBI’s increasing attention to the more prepared, organized and determined groups among the larger mass of rioters. Continue reading.

Russia Poses Greater Election Threat Than Iran, Many U.S. Officials Say

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Russia’s hackers appeared to be preparing to sow chaos amid any uncertainty around election results, officials said.

WASHINGTON — While senior Trump administration officials said this week that Iran has been actively interfering in the presidential election, many intelligence officials said they remained far more concerned about Russia, which in recent days has hacked into state and local computer networks in breaches that could allow Moscow broader access to American voting infrastructure.

The discovery of the hacks came as American intelligence agencies, infiltrating Russian networks themselves, have pieced together details of what they believe are Russia’s plans to interfere in the presidential race in its final days or immediately after the election on Nov. 3. Officials did not make clear what Russia planned to do, but they said its operations would be intended to help President Trump, potentially by exacerbating disputes around the results, especially if the race is too close to call.

F.B.I. and Homeland Security officials also announced on Thursday that Russia’s state hackers had targeted dozens of state and local governments and aviation networks starting in September. They stole data from the computer servers of at least two unidentified targets and continued to crawl through some of the affected networks, the agencies said. Other officials said that the targets included some voting-related systems, and that they may have been collateral damage in the attacks. Continue reading.

Trump signals impatience with FBI director’s cooperation with reviews of Russia investigation

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President Trump took a swing at his FBI director, Christopher A. Wray, on Thursday, expressing impatience with the bureau’s level of cooperation with inquiries into its investigation of the Trump campaign in 2016.

Speaking by phone with Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business, Trump railed against past investigations of his former adviser Carter Page, his former national security adviser Michael Flynn and his own conduct as president.

Asked whether Wray was withholding FBI documents that could shed more light on those cases, Trump noted there was an election coming up before saying: “I wish he was more forthcoming. He certainly hasn’t been. There are documents that they want to get and that we have said we want to get. We are going to find out if he’s going to give those documents. Certainly, he’s been very, very protective.” Continue reading.

The F.B.I. Pledged to Keep a Source Anonymous. Trump Allies Aided His Unmasking.

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — Not long after the early 2017 publication of a notorious dossier about President Trump jolted Washington, an expert in Russian politics told the F.B.I. he had been one of its key sources, drawing on his contacts to deliver information that would make up some of the most salacious and unproven assertions in the document.

The F.B.I. had approached the expert, a man named Igor Danchenko, as it vetted the dossier’s claims. He agreed to tell investigators what he knew with an important condition, people familiar with the matter said — that the F.B.I. keep his identity secret so he could protect himself, his sources and his family and friends in Russia.

But his hope of remaining anonymous evaporated last week after Attorney General William P. Barr directed the F.B.I. to declassify a redacted report about its three-day interview of Mr. Danchenko in 2017 and hand it over to Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Graham promptly made the interview summary public while calling the entire Russia investigation “corrupt.” Continue reading.

FBI director stuck in the middle with ‘Obamagate’

The Hill logoFBI Director Christopher Wray is sitting in an increasingly hot seat as Republicans and the White House press forward with investigations into what President Trump is calling “Obamagate.”

Congressional Republicans are pressing Wray to provide more information after recently released FBI field notes showed officials debating how to handle the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

The controversy over the notes contributed to Attorney General William Barr’s contentious decision to drop charges against Flynn, despite his guilty plea. Continue reading.

Trump Attacks Flynn Inquiry Amid New Revelations on F.B.I.

New York Times logoThe bureau was on the verge of closing its investigation into Michael Flynn in early 2017 when new evidence prompted agents to keep it open, newly disclosed court papers showed.

WASHINGTON — President Trump revived his attacks on law enforcement on Thursday as a pair of former advisers, Roger J. Stone Jr. and Michael T. Flynn, renewed their fights against their criminal convictions.

Mr. Flynn’s lawyers accused the F.B.I. and the Justice Department of misconduct, citing newly unsealed documents showing that F.B.I. officials were about to close the investigation into their client in early 2017 until new evidence prompted them to keep it open.

Mr. Stone appealed his conviction to the federal court of appeals for the District of Columbia. He was sentenced in February to 40 months in prison for obstructing a congressional investigation, lying to federal investigators and tampering with a witness. Continue reading.

Attorney General Barr breaks a Trump promise by refusing to release 9/11 documents to families of the victims

AlterNet logoMonths after President Donald Trump promised to open FBI files to help families of the 9/11 victims in a civil lawsuit against the Saudi government, the Justice Department has doubled down on its claim that the information is a state secret.

In a series of filings just before a midnight court deadline on Monday, the attorney general, William Barr; the acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell; and other senior officials insisted to a federal judge in the civil case that further disclosures about Saudi connections to the 9/11 plot would imperil national security.

But the administration insisted in court filings that even its justification for that secrecy needed to remain secret. Four statements to the court by FBI and Justice Department officials were filed under seal so they could not be seen by the public. An additional five, including one from the CIA, were shared only with the judge and cannot be read even by the plaintiffs’ lawyers. Continue reading.

A ‘longtime friend’ of Bill Barr just scorched the attorney general in an impassioned op-ed

AlterNet logoWilliam Webster, a former director of both the CIA and the FBI, published an incisive op-ed on Monday in the New York Times in which he took aim at, among others, his “longtime friend” Attorney General Bill Barr.

The ominous piece warned that Webster sees an “ominous threat to the country I love” under President Donald Trump.

He explained:

I am deeply disturbed by the assertion of President Trump that our “current director” — as he refers to the man he selected for the job of running the F.B.I. — cannot fix what the president calls a broken agency. The 10-year term given to all directors following J. Edgar Hoover’s 48-year tenure was created to provide independence for the director and for the bureau. The president’s thinly veiled suggestion that the director, Christopher Wray, like his banished predecessor, James Comey, could be on the chopping block, disturbs me greatly. The independence of both the F.B.I. and its director is critical and should be fiercely protected by each branch of government.

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‘That’s a lie’: Lindsey Graham called out for falsely claiming FBI stopped Russia’s attacks on 2016 Clinton campaign

AlterNet logoSenate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham opened up Wednesday morning’s hearing with Inspector General Michael Horowitz by falsely claiming the FBI was able to stop Russia’s attacks against the Hillary Clinton campaign, and suggested it did so early on, well before the November 2016 election.

That’s blatantly false.

Chairman Graham also appeared to imply that the FBI did so merely by contacting the Clinton campaign to warn them of Russia’s actions – and he made that claim to support his false theory that the Bureau should have told the Trump campaign it and its officials were subjects or even targets of a counterintelligence investigation to determine if they were conspiring with Russia to win the election.

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