Trump orders declassification of FISA warrant information; Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch shares insight on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'

By Sara Carter
SaraCarter.com

Rep. Meadows sent a letter to Deputy AG Rosenstein saying a "review of the new documents raises grave concerns regarding an apparent systemic culture of media leaking by high-ranking officials at the FBI and DOJ related to ongoing investigations"

Newly released text messages and documents obtained by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee reveal that senior members of the FBI and Department of Justice led a coordinated effort to leak unverified information to the press regarding alleged collusion with Russia to damage President Donald Trump’s administration, according to a letter sent by the committee to the DOJ Monday.

READ: Letter from MRM to DAG Rosensteino DOJ

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-NC, sent the letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein saying a “review of the new documents raises grave concerns regarding an apparent systemic culture of media leaking by high-ranking officials at the FBI and DOJ related to ongoing investigations.”

By Andrew C. McCarthy
TheNationalReview.com

What’s the legal basis for his special-counsel investigation? We have a right to know.

For precisely what federal crimes is the president of the United States under investigation by a special counsel appointed by the Justice Department?

It is intolerable that, after more than two years of digging — the 16-month Mueller probe having been preceded by the blatantly suspect labors of the Obama Justice Department and FBI — we still do not have an answer to that simple question.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein owes us an answer.

To my mind, he has owed us an answer from the beginning, meaning when he appointed Special Counsel Robert Mueller on May 17, 2017. The regulations under which he made the appointment require (a) a factual basis for believing that a federal crime worthy of investigation or prosecution has been committed; (b) a conflict of interest so significant that the Justice Department is unable to investigate this suspected crime in the normal course; and (c) an articulation of the factual basis for the criminal investigation — i.e., the investigation of specified federal crimes — which shapes the boundaries of the special counsel’s jurisdiction.

This last provision is designed to prevent a special counsel’s investigation from becoming a fishing expedition — or what President Trump calls a “witch hunt,” what DAG Rosenstein more diplomatically disclaims as an “unguided missile,” and what Harvard’s Alan Dershowitz, invoking Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s secret-police chief, pans as the warped dictum, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” In our country, the crime triggers the assignment of a prosecutor, not the other way around.
 

TheNatiionalSentinel.com

Corruption: You have to wonder if, at times, POTUS Donald Trump still thinks his decision to run for president (and then have the temerity to actually win) has been worth it, given the array of Deep State nefariousness that has been deployed against him.

And you have to wonder as well whether those who made the journey with him still believe it was worth it, especially those targeted by the never-ending and always expanding probe of special counsel Robert Mueller.

One of the individuals caught up in Mueller’s witch hunt is George Papadopoulos, a one-time, low-ranking policy adviser to the Trump campaign who has since been charged by Mueller with a process crime – lying to federal investigators, a crime to which he has since pleaded guilty.

But there’s more to the Papadopoulos chapter than previously known: It appears that he was set up by Deep State operatives working on behalf of Barack Obama’s White House and exploited as a tool to hurt POTUS Trump and bring down his presidency.

The Gateway Pundit reported that elements of the CIA and FBI worked in conjunction to set up Papadopoulos, probably because, as a younger man eager to make his mark in government, he was considered an easier ‘mark’ than more senior officials who’ve been around for a while.

Papadopoulos managed to get a small role in the Trump campaign in early 2016, and after making inroads was contacted by several individuals working for the Deep State. Their objective was to tie Papadopoulos to Russia as part of the scheme to link the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin together in order to frame both for “stealing” the election.

CIA and FBI assets Prof. Stefan Halper and Joseph Mifsud met with Papadopoulos in the U.K., and during the course of separate conversations told Papadopoulos that the Russians had “dirt” on Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

By Tom Borelli
ConservativeReview.com

Where the Russians failed to create political discord in the U.S., the  Democrats, the deep state, and the left-wing media did.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election has failed to find evidence of collusion between President Trump’s campaign and Russia, but that has not stopped Mueller and the deep-state cast of characters from generating an endless supply of ammunition for Democrats and the left-wing media to undermine President Trump. The drumbeat of negative news and outrageous rhetoric directed at President Trump and his administration has created a toxic political environment and caused more damage to the president and government institutions than Russian agents ever could, exceeding the wildest dreams of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Mueller’s investigation, targeting members of Trump’s campaign and his former personal lawyer, has not found any evidence of Russian collusion.  Former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos both pleaded guilty of lying to the FBI, but the charges did not involve Russia. Former campaign head Paul Manafort was found guilty on eight charges involving bank fraud and tax evasion, and President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen agreed to a guilty plea regarding tax evasion, false statements to a financial institution, and campaign finance laws.

By Sara Carter
SaraCarter.com

• Ohr told Congress that the FBI was aware that his wife worked for Fusion GPS, but failed to disclose that to FISC
• He also claims the FBI was aware of dossier author's
  bias, but failed to disclose that to the secret court as well.

Senior Justice Department official, Bruce Ohr testified Tuesday that prior to obtaining the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on short-term Trump campaign volunteer, Carter Page, the FBI was aware that former British spy and anti-Trump dossier author, Christopher Steele was biased against then-candidate Trump. He also stated that the FBI knew that his wife, Nellie Ohr was working for Fusion GPS, the now-embattled research firm which was hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC to compile the dossier with Steele. This, according to Congressional sources with direct knowledge of Ohr’s closed-door deposition.

Ohr stated during his hours-long testimony that the FBI failed to disclose this pertinent information to the nation’s secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) when it sought an application to spy on Page. The FBI also failed to disclose that when it sought the application, it was using senior Justice Department official, Bruce Ohr as a cut-out for a source the bureau had terminated.

Ohr had also communicated with senior members of the FBI, including former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, FBI attorney Lisa Page, and former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, at the bureau but stated that his superiors at the Justice Department were not aware that he was being used as a source for the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign, according to sources who spoke to SaraACarter.com.

“When it comes to the dossier, the hours of testimony from Bruce Ohr only further confirm how wrong the FBI operated,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) told this news outlet. Jordan would not give details on the testimony but stated that Ohr’s deposition was a necessary part of the investigation and getting to the truth.

It’s astonishing the FBI kept the information from the court

Page, who left the FBI earlier this year and whose anti-Trump text messages exposed her relationship with Strzok, downplayed during her communications with Ohr during her congressional deposition last month. Strzok, who served for 22 years in the FBI, was fired from the bureau earlier this month by FBI Deputy Director David L. Bowdich. Bowdich’s decision to fire Strzok actually overruled the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which recommended a 60-day suspension and demotion.

“It was obvious early on that Bruce Ohr was the backchannel for Steele,” said a congressional source with direct knowledge of the testimony. “The FBI was aware of potential bias of Nellie Ohr and they knew about Steele’s bias early on but never included it in the FISA application. It’s astonishing the FBI kept the information from the court: the fact that there was a back channel after they terminated Christopher Steele and also Fusion GPS, knowing Ohr’s wife was working there.”

Another congressional source, involved in the investigation of Bruce Ohr, tells SaraACarter.com, “The DOJ refused to disclose all kinds of biases to the FISA court. The fact that they didn’t tell the court that Fusion GPS was paying the wife of a top DOJ official to work on the Steele dossier, parts of which the DOJ cited to get a warrant to spy on an American citizen, is another stunning and inexcusable failure.”

By Sara Carter
SaraCarter.com

A trove of emails and handwritten notes from Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr exposes the continuous contact and communication between the DOJ attorney and anti-Trump dossier author Christopher Steele, according to notes and documents obtained by SaraACarter.com. The emails and notes were written between 2016 and 2017.

The notes and emails also reveal that Ohr was in communication with Glenn Simpson, the founder of the embattled research firm Fusion GPS, which was paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC to hire Steele.

In one of Ohr’s handwritten notes listed as “Law enforcement Sensitive” from May 10, 2017, he writes “Call with Chris,” referencing Steele. He notes that Steele is “very concerned about Comey hearing, afraid they will be exposed.” This call occurred months after FBI Director James Comey testified before the House Intelligence Committee and revealed for the first time that the FBI had an open counterintelligence investigation into President Donald Trump’s campaign and alleged collusion with Russia.

By Julie Kelly
AmGreatness.com

In his online appeal for money after being fired this week, disgraced former FBI agent Peter Strzok credited an unlikely source to vouch for his victim status: The Weekly Standard.

At one time a leading conservative magazine, the Standard declared last month that Strzok’s plight was merely an “overwrought tale of bias” and the case against him is “just sound and fury.” The article brushed off Strzok’s actions as “several bad judgment calls” and blasted Congressional Republicans for continuing a criminal investigation into the now-unemployed G-man.

Strzok is following only 32 people on his newly-verified Twitter account. Bill Kristol, the editor-at-large of the Standard, is one of them.

So, what’s with the fanboying between the Standard—an allegedly serious publication dedicated to advancing conservative principles—and a corrupt government bureaucrat who embodies everything the conservative movement fought against for decades?

I found an article in the Standard archives this week that might explain why. On July 24, 2016, just days before Strzok helped launch a counterintelligence probe into the Trump campaign, Kristol gave Strzok and the Obama Justice Department a big assist from the anti-Trump Right by posting a flawed and questionably-sourced article. “Putin’s Party” is compelling evidence that Kristol and the Standard were far from mere sideline observers as the Trump-Russia collusion scam took shape in the summer of 2016.

At the very least, the timing of the article suggests there was careful coordination between the central players—including the Hillary Clinton campaign—and Bill Kristol to derail Trump’s candidacy just weeks before the election. But the article’s content also serves to raise alarming questions about the claims by many Republicans that “conservatives” had no knowledge of or involvement with the Christopher Steele dossier.

Let’s back up a bit. On the morning that Kristol’s piece posted, the Trump-Russian election collusion story was in its embryonic stage—nearly all American voters that summer remained blissfully unaware of the details in this preposterous story—but secretly it was being peddled to the media by Fusion GPS, a political opposition research firm hired by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to dig up Russian-related dirt on Donald Trump. Talking points produced by Glenn Simpson, the head of Fusion, and contained in the Steele dossier, were making the rounds in the D.C.-NYC media claque during July 2016. (At the same time, Steele was working with the FBI and alerting the agency to his dubious findings about the Trump campaign.)

By Shepard Ambellas
IntelliHub.com

FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok was fired by the bureau on Monday over a series of controversial anti-Trump text messages which Peter Strzok and his former lover Lisa Page had exchanged during the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.

However, the press has failed to report that Strzok was an agent for both the FBI and CIA at the same time.

That’s right, not only was Strzok employed by the FBI until his abrupt public departure from the bureau on Monday, Strzok has been sheep-dipped by the CIA where he currently remains employed to this day. (i.e. Strzok’s termination from the FBI on Monday was nothing more than a dog and pony show as Strzok remains an integral member of the deep state)

As I originally reported in mid-July, a sheep-dipped Peter Strzok worked for both the FBI and CIA at the time.

Hello! People! This is big!

Both the FBI and CIA have played the American people for fools by not disclosing the fact that Peter Strzok is a double agent of the U.S. government and has been sheep-dipped by the CIA.

The bombshell information published first on BrassBalls.blog reveals that the “joint CIA/FBI position was created by Congress in 1996” which allowed Strzok to hold both posts.

An unclassified document printed on FBI letterhead dated January 20, 2016, which contains the subject line “Supplemental Classification Review and Determination” was addressed to the Bureau of National Security’s Assistant Secretary Gregory B. Starr from Peter Strzok who is listed as “Section Chief” of the “Counterespionage Section” in reference to Strzok’s CIA post. Keep in mind, this is not an FBI post as Strzok’s position at the FBI is “Deputy Assistant Director Counterintelligence Division” not “Section Chief” which is a CIA post.

By Lee Smith
RealClearInvestigations.com
 

The June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between high-ranking members of the Republican presidential campaign staff and a Russian lawyer with Kremlin ties remains the cornerstone of claims that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to steal the election.

A growing body of evidence, however, indicates that the meeting may have been a setup — part of a broad effort to tarnish the Trump campaign involving Hillary Clinton operatives employed by Kremlin-linked figures and Department of Justice officials. This view, that the real collusion may have taken place among those who arranged the meeting rather than the Trump officials who agreed to attend it, is supported by two disparate lines of evidence pulled together for the first time here: newly released records and a pattern of efforts to connect the Trump campaign to Russia.

The first line of evidence includes emails, texts, and memos recently turned over to Congress by the Department of Justice. They show how closely senior Justice Department officials and the Federal Bureau of Investigation worked with employees of Fusion GPS, a Washington-based research firm reportedly paid $1 million by Clinton operatives to dig up dirt on the Trump campaign.

They reveal that then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, the fourth-highest-ranking official at DOJ, coordinated before, during and after the election with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, who did work for the Clinton campaign and Russians; and former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who was employed by Simpson

Those emails, which disclose the topics of discussions but not their details, revolve around two business executives: Donald Trump and Oleg Deripaska, a Russian aluminum magnate close to President Vladimir Putin. Steele was particularly interested in resolving issues concerning Deripaska's U.S. visa, which was revoked in 2006 because of his suspected ties to organized crime. In another sign of the overlapping strands of this story, when Special Counsel Robert Mueller was running the FBI in 2009, the bureau had asked Deripaska to contribute millions of dollars to help locate former FBI agent Robert Levinson, captured in Iran in 2007 while working for the CIA. Levinson remains missing.

The Ohr-Steele-Simpson correspondence appears to include references to the former British spy’s work for Fusion GPS on Trump’s ties to Russia. Months before the election, Steele wrote Ohr to say that he would be back in Washington soon "on business of mutual interest."

The cozy relationship was bolstered by the fact that the wife of the senior DOJ official, Nellie Ohr, was employed by Fusion GPS.

After Steele was dismissed by the FBI for speaking to the press for an October 31, 2016 report, Bruce Ohr took over the work of relaying Fusion GPS’ opposition research on the Trump campaign directly to the FBI.

The culmination of their combined efforts, the 35-page dossier of unverified Trump/Russia connections, was used by the FBI to secure a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. The Department of Justice did not respond to RealClearInvestigations’ requests for comment, nor did Glenn Simpson's lawyer, Joshua Levy.

The second line of evidence reframing the Trump Tower meeting -- after the Ohr-Steele-Simpson correspondence – was first reported in June by RealClearInvestigations. It shows that, starting in March 2016, FBI confidential sources and other figures associated with Western intelligence services and the Clinton campaign approached the Trump team promising damaging information on Clinton. The Trump Tower meeting appears to have been the most successful of these approaches, since it was the one instance where the Trump campaign signaled it was willing to receive incriminating information on its opponent.