Tag: Trump FBI

Rosenstein blocked FBI from probing Trump’s Russian ties — then ordered Mueller to ignore them as well

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One of the many oddities of the now-terminated Robert Mueller probe into Russian election interference and its links to various members of the Trump campaign and family, and in fact of all known federal probes into Russia’s Trump-related actions, has been the seeming lack of any counterintelligence probe on Donald Trump’s myriad, longstanding financial connections to Russia—and what role those financial ties have played both in the Russian government’s actions on behalf of Trump and their possible leverage over the now-president.

A new story from The New York Times‘ Michael Schmidt reports that that’s because in the first months of the new Trump administration, former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein shuttered that investigation—then ordered special counsel Robert Mueller to steer clear of it himself. It’s not that the counterintelligence investigation into Trump’s known ties to Russian crime figures, to money laundering, and his family’s stated reliance on Russian cash has been kept closely-held: It never existed. And it still doesn’t.

The accusation being leveled by acting Federal Bureau of Investigation director Andrew McCabe against Rosenstein goes further, suggesting that Rosenstein intentionally misled him. Schmidt reports that McCabe launched a counterintelligence probe into Trump’s Russian ties immediately after Trump’s firing of former FBI director James Comey, a move that was widely publicly speculated to be a Trump move to quash investigations into Russian election actions and into numerous of Trump’s top advisers and allies. The fear within the intelligence community was that Trump’s behaviors could be impacted by unknown Russian pressures, representing an immediate national security threat. Continue reading.

FBI director says China aims to become “world’s only superpower”

Axios logoFBI Director Christopher Wray gave a speech today at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. in which he laid out “more detail on the Chinese threat than the FBI has ever presented in an open forum.”

Why it matters: China’s increasingly aggressive behavior under General Secretary Xi Jinping is ringing alarm bells in the U.S.

Details: Wray described the multi-pronged efforts they have seen from China to take advantage of Americans and of U.S. innovation and technology, including the Equifax hack, theft of sensitive military technology, pressure to self-censor, and economic coercion applied to state and local-level U.S. elected officials.

  • “If you are an American adult, it is more likely than not that China has stolen your personal data. … Our data isn’t the only thing at stake here — so are our health, our livelihoods, and our security,” he said.
  • “We’ve now reached the point where the FBI is opening a new China-related counterintelligence case approximately every ten hours.” Continue reading.

FBI releases records of Justice Dept. official Bruce Ohr interviews about Russia probe

Washington Post logoHeavily redacted FBI memos released Thursday show that while the FBI formally cut ties with a former British intelligence officer who supplied some early information in the investigation of Russian election interference, agents quietly sought to reestablish contact as the case heated up.

The released documents are formal FBI interview memos of agents’ conversations with Bruce Ohr, a senior Justice Department official who has drawn the ire of President Trump for his connections to Christopher Steele, a former British spy with an expertise in Russia who wrote a dossier of allegations against Trump in 2016. The general thrust of Steele’s allegations was that then-candidate Trump was secretly aligned with Russian officials and could be manipulated by them.

Ohr, a relatively obscure Justice Department employee for more than 20 years, became a focus of Republicans in Congress after they learned of his interactions with Steele, and the Washington, D.C.-based research firm that hired Steele, Fusion GPS.

View the complete August 9, article by Devlin Barrett on The Washington Post website here.

FBI says it lost ‘missing files’ on the white nationalist hate site Stormfront: report

AlterNet logoThe FBI told reporter Emma Best that has lost or could not find its records on the white nationalist hate site Stormfront, MuckRock reported this week.

Best had requested the records through the Freedom of Information Act, but the bureau only returned 104 pages of files. It believed there were more records to find:

For your information. a search of the indices of our Central Records System reflected there were additional records potentially responsive for your Freedom of Information/Privacy Acts (FOIA) request. We have attempted to obtain this material so it could be reviewed to determine whether it was responsive to your request. We were advised that the potentially responsive records were not In their expected location and could not be located after a reasonable search. Following a reasonable waiting period. another attempt was made to obtain this material. This search for the missing records also met with unsuccessful results.

View the complete July 4 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

Sarah Sanders comes out of hiding for 15 minutes to trash the FBI

Sarah Sanders has been hiding from the press for nearly a month. After emerging she attacked the FBI to defend Trump’s criminality.

Sarah Sanders emerged from hiding and used an extremely brief press briefing to attack the FBI and to promote absurd conspiracy theories about the prosecution of Trump’s criminal former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

The White House press operation has been in hiding since November 27, the date of the last briefing — nearly a month ago. In total the Trump administration has only held four such briefings since September.

They have avoided questions on the growing evidence that Trump stands at the center of a criminal enterprise, directing the commission of federal crimes and covering them up.

View the complete December 18 article by Oliver Willis on the ShareBlue.com website here.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump says exposing ‘corrupt’ FBI probe could be ‘crowning achievement’ of presidency

President Trump in an exclusive interview with Hill.TV said Tuesday he ordered the release of classified documents in the Russia collusion case to show the public the FBI probe started as a “hoax” and that exposing it could become one of the “crowning achievements” of his presidency.

“What we’ve done is a great service to the country, really,” Trump said in a 45-minute, wide-ranging interview in the Oval Office.

“I hope to be able to call this, along with tax cuts and regulation and all the things I’ve done … in its own way this might be the most important thing because this was corrupt,” he said.

View the complete September 18 article by John Solomon and Buck Sexton on the Hill website here.

 

Want to Know More About: Trump’s Demand for FISA Release

Mika Brzezinski: “In An Unprecedented Move, President Trump Is Using The Power Of His Office To Order The Director Of National Intelligence And The Justice Department Immediately Declassify Materials In The Ongoing Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Election.” [Morning Joe, MSNBC, 9/18/18; VIDEO]

Joe Scarborough: “The FBI Not Wanting To Release, The Justice Department Hasn’t Wanted It To Release. The Director Of National Intelligence Didn’t Want It Released. You Have Sources And Methods That Are Highly Likely To Be Exposed Which The President Was Warned About.” SCARBOROUGH: “The FBI not wanting to release, the Justice Department hasn’t wanted it to release. The Director of National Intelligence didn’t want it released. You have sources and methods that are highly likely to be exposed which the President was warned about, the Commander in Chief was warned about. And you have one of the more highly classified programs in the United States of America, the FISA courts, that now we’re going to allow our enemies to see exactly how we do things as it pertains to the FISA courts.” [Morning Joe, MSNBC, 9/18/18; VIDEO]

Matt Miller: “He Is Really Taking The Powers Of His Office, The Powers Of The Presidency And Using Them To Advance His Personal Interest.” MILLER: “He is really taking the powers of his office, the powers of the presidency and using them to advance his personal interest which he defines as using this war against the FBI rather than protect the national interests.” [Morning Joe, MSNBC, 9/18/18; VIDEO] Continue reading “Want to Know More About: Trump’s Demand for FISA Release”

FBI fires Strzok after anti-Trump texts

The following article by Olivia Beavers was posted on the Hill website August 13, 2018:

Peter Strzok Credit: Jack Gruber, USA Today Network

The FBI has fired Peter Strzok, the counterintelligence agent who came under fire for sending disparaging text messages about President Trump and other political figures during the 2016 election.

Strzok’s lawyer, Aitan Goelman, confirmed the firing, which took place on Friday. He blasted the decision in a statement, saying the “Deputy Director of the FBI overruled the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and departed from established precedent by firing 21-year FBI veteran Peter Strzok.”

“The decision to fire Special Agent Strzok is not only a departure from typical Bureau practice, but also contradicts Director [Christopher] Wray’s testimony to Congress and his assurances that the FBI intended to follow its regular process in this and all personnel matters,” Goelman continued in the statement.

View the complete article here.

F.B.I. Investigated Sessions for Possible Perjury Over Russia Denials

The following article by Adam Goldman, Katie Benner and Matt Apuzzo was posted on the New York Times website March 21, 2018:

Andrew G. McCabe, the former F.B.I. deputy director, right, authorized an investigation into possible perjury over congressional statements by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Credit: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via Shutterstock

WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. investigated Attorney General Jeff Sessions for possible perjury last year over congressional testimony in which he said he had no contacts with Russians, according to three people familiar with the case.

In fact, Mr. Sessions later acknowledged, he had personally met the Russian ambassador to the United States during the campaign and was aware that George Papadopoulos, a campaign adviser, had developed Russian ties, too. F.B.I. agents were aware of both inaccuracies in real time. And last March, when Congress asked the F.B.I. to investigate the attorney general, agents began doing so, two of the people said. Continue reading “F.B.I. Investigated Sessions for Possible Perjury Over Russia Denials”