Top Obama administration officials purportedly requested to "unmask" the identity of Michael Flynn during the presidential transition period, according to a list of names from that controversial process made public on Wednesday.
The list was declassified in recent days by Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell and then sent to GOP Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson, who made the documents public. The roster features top-ranking figures including then-Vice President Joe Biden -- a detail sure to soon be raised in the bare-knuckle 2020 presidential race where Biden is now the Democrats' presumptive nominee. The list also includes then-FBI Director James Comey, then-CIA Director John Brennan, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Obama's then-chief of staff Denis McDonough. Click the link below to continue the article. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/grenell-releases-list-of-officials-who-sought-to-unmask-flynn-biden-comey-obama-intel-chiefs-among-them
Comments
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/grenell-declassifies-names-of-obama-officials-who-unmasked-flynn-report-says
Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell has decided to declassify information about Obama administration officials who were behind the “unmasking” of Michael Flynn -- whose calls with the former Russian ambassador during the presidential transition were picked up in surveillance and later leaked -- and their names could soon be made public, a source confirmed. Fox News confirmed that a new round of documents is expected, in the wake of a document dump last week that renewed focus on the Russia investigation and specifically the treatment of Flynn. The unmasking concerns events between the November 2016 election and Inauguration Day 2017, Fox News is told. Another source familiar with the intelligence told Fox News that Grenell is moving to declassify several pieces of intelligence in stages, with this being one part of it. Asked if former President Barack Obama's name is on the list of officials involving in unmasking Flynn, the source would not say but stressed the list would make waves. The Wall Street Journal, which reported on the looming release overnight, cited a senior government official who called Grenell's move unprecedented, as it came just days after the Justice Department dropped its case against Flynn, President Trump’s first national security adviser. It is now up to Attorney General William Barr to release the names publicly. Unmasking occurs after U.S. citizens' conversations are incidentally picked up in conversations with foreign officials who are being monitored by the intelligence community. The U.S. citizens' identities are supposed to be protected if their participation is incidental and no wrongdoing is suspected. However, officials can determine the U.S. citizens' names through a process that is supposed to safeguard their rights. Officials in the Obama administration have acknowledged that they unmasked some Americans in intelligence reports, but insisted that their reasons were legitimate. Susan Rice, Obama’s former national security adviser, said she unmasked the identities of Trump officials during the transition, according to ABC News. She has denied leaking their identities or being politically motivated. An official told ABC News that Grenell visited the Justice Department at some point last week and had the list with him. The move coincided with the department's stunning reversal in the Flynn case, which was previously seen as special prosecutor Robert Mueller's signature case from the Russian collusion investigation. The decision to drop the case was made even though prosecutors, for the past three years, have maintained that Flynn lied to the FBI in a January 2017 interview about his conversations with the Russian ambassador. Flynn pleaded guilty to this, but later sought to withdraw the plea. Recent documents released in the case included handwritten notes in which FBI officials questioned what the purpose of interviewing Flynn. "What is our goal?" one of the notes read. "Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?" In court documents filed last week, the Justice Department said that after reviewing newly disclosed information and other materials, it agreed with Flynn’s lawyers that his Jan. 24, 2017 interview with the FBI should never have taken place because he had not had inappropriate contacts with Russians. The interview, the department said, was “conducted without any legitimate investigative basis.” Sidney Powell, one of Flynn’s lawyers, told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” that FBI agents did their best to hide their investigation and attempted to entrap Flynn. She mentioned a meeting on Jan. 5, 2017 at the White House that included Obama, then-FBI Director James Comey, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan. Powell said the “whole thing was orchestrated and set up within the FBI, Clapper, Brennan and in the Oval Office meeting that day with President Obama,” she told anchor Maria Bartiromo. Bartiromo asked Powell if she believed the scandal reached up to Obama, and Powell responded, “Absolutely.” Trump later tweeted, “OBAMAGATE,” indicating that he believes that Obama worked to undermine his presidency. When asked by a reporter in the Rose Garden what crime he is accusing Obama of committing, Trump responded: “Obamagate, it’s been going on for a long time, it’s been going on from before I got elected, and it's a disgrace that it happened. You look at now all of this information that’s being released and from what I understand that’s only the beginning.” Flynn bombshell puts renewed attention on Durham probe, source says Barr talking to him ‘every day’5/1/2020 EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Attorney for Connecticut John Durham has reviewed the bombshell files released earlier this week showing FBI officials discussed whether they wanted to interview Michael Flynn in order to “get him to lie,” sources familiar with his investigation told Fox News, as the document drop renews attention on his probe of the law enforcement community's Russia case.
Sources even said charges could be justified against officials, and that those reviewing the Justice Department and the FBI's actions are building a "serious case." Durham and Attorney General Bill Barr are said to be speaking regularly. “Durham has seen all of this already,” one source told Fox News, adding that they “could be sufficient for some charges against agents.” “It’s a crime to present under oath false or misleading information,” the source told Fox News. “Not to mention obstruction of justice.” Another source also told Fox News that the files have been reviewed by Durham and Jeff Jensen, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri who was tapped by the Justice Department in February to review the Flynn case specifically. “They’re building a very serious case,” the second source told Fox News in reference to Durham's team. Click the link below to continue the article https://www.foxnews.com/politics/flynn-bombshell-puts-renewed-attention-on-durham-probe-source-says-barr-talking-to-him-every-day Strzok claims anti-Trump texts protected by 1st Amendment, administration violated his rights Former FBI agent Peter Strzok, who is suing the government in a bid for reinstatement, argued in a court filing in Washington, D.C., federal district court on Monday that his politically charged anti-Trump messages were protected by the First Amendment -- even though he sent them on bureau-issued phones while playing leading roles in the probes into both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
"Firing an employee for the content of his or her non-public communications is unconstitutional, irrespective of any balancing of interests" including damage to the FBI's reputation and other factors, Strzok argued in his response brief, which also slammed Trump's "unpresidential tweets." Because it was the DOJ that had leaked his anti-Trump text messages, Strzok argued, his texts should be considered private speech, and he should not be held to the tougher legal standard under the 1968 Supreme Court case Pickering v. Board of Education that applies to public statements by government employees. Strzok, once the FBI's head of counterintelligence, said he was entitled to "develop a full factual record through discovery," and that it would be premature to dismiss the case at this early stage. He went on to argue that the DOJ's position would "leave thousands of career federal government employees without protections from discipline over the content of their political speech." Strzok's filing was a response to the Justice Department's no-holds-barred motion to dismiss his lawsuit for reinstatement in November. The DOJ told the court that Strzok had even admitted to conducting FBI business on his personal iMessage account and assured them that the materials were secure -- even though his wife accessed his phone and determined he was having an affair with Lisa Page, then an FBI lawyer also involved in the Clinton and Russia probes. Please click the link to continure the article https://www.foxnews.com/politics/strzok-claims-anti-trump-texts-protected-by-1st-amendment-administration-violated-his-rights FISA COURT SPEAKS In a rare public order Tuesday, the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court [FISC] strongly criticized the FBI over its surveillance-application process, giving the bureau until Jan. 10 to come up with solutions, in the wake of findings from Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz.
The order, from the court's presiding judge Rosemary M. Collyer, came just a week after the release of Horowitz's withering report about the wiretapping of Carter Page, a former campaign adviser to President Trump. "The FBI's handling of the Carter Page applications, as portrayed in the [Office of Inspector General] report, was antithetical to the heightened duty of candor described above," Collyer wrote in her four-page order. "The frequency with which representations made by FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable." Click the link to continue the article https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fisa-court-slams-fbi-over-surveillance-applications-in-rare-public-order "WE DO NOT AGREE" Durham blisters Horowitz after IG report spares FBI brass in Trump probe origins
The U.S. attorney who is conducting a wide-ranging investigation of the origins of the Trump-Russia probe released a rare statement Monday saying he disagrees with conclusions of the so-called FISA report -- after DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz found in that review that the probe's launch largely complied with DOJ and FBI policies. “Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened,” U.S. Attorney John Durham said in a statement. Horowitz released his report Monday saying his investigators found no intentional misconduct or political bias surrounding efforts to launch that 2016 probe and to seek a highly controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in the early months of the investigation. Still, it found that there were "significant concerns with how certain aspects of the investigation were conducted and supervised." “I have the utmost respect for the mission of the Office of Inspector General and the comprehensive work that went into the report prepared by Mr. Horowitz and his staff,” Durham said. “However, our investigation is not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department. Our investigation has included developing information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S.” As Horowitz has conducted his review of DOJ actions during the Russia probe, Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, has also been conducting a wider inquiry into alleged misconduct and alleged improper government surveillance on the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election. Fox News reported in October that Durham's ongoing probe has transitioned into a full-fledged criminal investigation. Meanwhile, Attorney General William Barr ripped the FBI’s “intrusive” investigation after the release of Horowitz’s review, saying it was launched based on the “thinnest of suspicions.” “The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken,” Barr said in a statement. Barr expressed frustration that the FBI continued investigating the Trump campaign, even as “exculpatory” information came to the light. Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller acknowledged in his report that investigators did not find evidence of a conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and the Russians in 2016 – which the FBI probed extensively.“It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory,” Barr said. “Nevertheless, the investigation and surveillance was pushed forward for the duration of the campaign and deep into President Trump’s administration.” Barr said the FISA report shows a “clear abuse” of the surveillance process. “In the rush to obtain and maintain FISA surveillance of Trump campaign associates, FBI officials misled the FISA court, omitted critical exculpatory facts from their filings, and suppressed or ignored information negating the reliability of their principal source,” Barr said. He added, “The Inspector General found the explanations given for these actions unsatisfactory. While most of the misconduct identified by the Inspector General was committed in 2016 and 2017 by a small group of now-former FBI officials, the malfeasance and misfeasance detailed in the Inspector General’s report reflects a clear abuse of the FISA process.” Monday’s FISA report dealing with the investigation into Trump’s campaign has long been expected. Horowitz in September submitted a draft of the report to Barr and the FBI so they could identify any classified information. But it had not been publicly released until now. The release comes as Washington has been consumed with an impeachment inquiry into President Trump. The House Judiciary Committee is holding the inquiry’s latest hearing Monday, days after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats are moving forward with plans to bring articles of impeachment against the president over his dealings with Ukraine. Recent polling on impeachment indicates that independent voters are far from sold on ousting President Trump from the White House. In fact, the national surveys suggest support for impeaching and removing the GOP incumbent has deteriorated over the past month, even as the House inquiry has ramped up. Fifty percent of independents questioned in an NPR/PBS/Marist poll conducted Nov. 11-15 did not support impeaching and removing Trump from office, with just 42 percent backing such a move. That’s a slight dip in support compared with the previous NPR/PBS/Marist poll – conducted the first week in October – when support stood at 45 percent. Click the link to read the whole article https://www.foxnews.com/politics/independents-impeachment-polls Please click the "Heart" below to recommend the discussion.
Democrats could draft 4 articles of impeachment, GOP plans for full Senate trial, sources say11/21/2019 Abuse of power. Bribery. Contempt of Congress. Obstruction of justice. Those the four potential articles of impeachment that House Judiciary Committee Democrats could draw up against President Trump as soon as next month, Fox News is told, after all scheduled public hearings before the House Intelligence Committee wrapped up on a testy note Thursday. At a meeting with top GOP senators and Trump administration officials at the White House on Thursday afternoon, Fox News is told there was a consensus that should Trump be impeached by the House, the GOP-controlled Senate should hold a trial rather than tabling the issue. Click the link to read the whole article https://www.foxnews.com/politics/impeachment-articles-senate-trial-republicans Please click the "Heart" below to recommend the discussion.
The White House outlined in a defiant eight-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Democrats on Tuesday why it will not participate in their “illegitimate and unconstitutional” impeachment inquiry, charging that the proceedings have run roughshod over congressional norms and the president's due-process rights. Trump administration officials called the letter, which was written by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and obtained by Fox News, perhaps the most historic letter the White House has sent. The document tees up a head-on collision with Democrats in Congress, who have fired off a slew of subpoenas in recent days concerning the president's apparent efforts to get Ukraine to investigate political foe Joe Biden. "President Trump and his administration reject your baseless, unconstitutional efforts to overturn the democratic process," the letter stated. "Your unprecedented actions have left the president with no choice. In order to fulfill his duties to the American people, the Constitution, the Executive Branch, and all future occupants of the Office of the Presidency, President Trump and his administration cannot participate in your partisan and unconstitutional inquiry under these circumstances." READ THE WHITE HOUSE LETTER The document concluded: "The president has a country to lead. The American people elected him to do this job, and he remains focused on fulfilling his promises to the American people." Click the link to read the whole article. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/impeachment-inquiry-white-house-not-comply-pelosi Please click on the "Heart" below to recommend the discussion.
Trump is calling Pelosi's bluff! The White House will send House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., a letter on Friday "daring" her to hold a vote on Democrats' impeachment inquiry into President Trump, Fox News has confirmed. The letter will say the White House won't comply with the Democrats' investigation because Pelosi hasn't codified the probe with a formal vote on the House floor. Its tone will be consistent with that of the letter House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., sent to the speaker on Thursday, Fox learned. MCCARTHY CALLS ON PELOSI TO SUSPEND TRUMP IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY, ACCUSES HER OF 'RECKLESSNESS' In his letter, McCarthy called on Pelosi to end the impeachment inquiry until “equitable rules and procedures” are set up. Click the link to read the whole article. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-pelosi-impeachment-letter Please click on the "Heart" below to recommend the discussion.
Please take the time to watch this video for how many time Dimwits have called for Trumps impeachment.
Democrats employing a second round of false collusion narratives with Ukraine
Please click on the "Heart" below to recommend the discussion.
House Republican Conference Chairman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., on Monday pushed for answers on how much top Democrats knew about the explosive White House whistleblower's complaint before it was officially made, after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's head-turning comments during a televised interview on Sunday.
"He told me it was perfect, that there was nothing on the call," Pelosi said on CBS News' "60 Minutes," referring to a conversation she had with President Trump before the Trump administration released either a transcript of his call with Ukraine's leader or the whistleblower's complaint. "But, I know what was in the call," Pelosi continued, before quickly adding, "I mean, uh, it was in the public domain." Click the link to read the whole article. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-gop-conference-chair-asks
Please click on the "Heart" below to recommend the discussion.
Susan Rice, who was one of President Obama's closest advisers during his time in office, blasted President Trump on Friday night for storing details about his July 25 call with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky in a separate, highly secured computer system.
Rice, who was a guest at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, addressed whistleblower allegations that the Trump administration worked to "lock down" these records to presumably hide his interaction with Zelensky where he dangled about $400 million in military aid to get Kiev to investigate the Bidens relationship to the country. Both Trump and Zelensky denied the allegations. Trump insisted that the conversation was "perfect" and he was just making sure the country was making good on its promise to weed out corruption. Obama’s former national security adviser said the "normal system" that holds information on similar calls is protected and classified. She said there was "no classified substance" in the Trump phone call and yet the administration "hid it on a very highly sensitive, highly compartmentalized server that very few people in the U.S. government have access to in order to bury it." She was asked by the moderator if the Obama administration ever kept calls on a separate server. She responded by saying only if "they were legitimately in their contents classified." "It’s rare that a presidential conversation would be classified to that highest level," she said. "It's not impossible. It’s very rare. Even when they are two leaders discussing classified information. Here’s a case where there was nothing classified and it was moved to the most secure, sensitive server.” The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that the Trump administration—after sensing problematic leaks early in his presidency—worked to protect presidential phone calls. Politicians on both sides of the aisle understand the importance of a sitting president’s ability to engage with a foreign leader in a conversation that would not face public scrutiny. The Trump administration reportedly said the phone call with Ukraine’s leader was only added to the server after guidance from National Security Counsel lawyer.
Please click on the "Heart" below to recommend the discussion.
The Democratic chairs of three House committees subpoenaed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Friday for documents related to Ukraine that they say pertain to the impeachment inquiry against President Trump. The chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight committees initially requested a laundry list of documents on Sept. 9 and sent a follow-up letter on Monday. "Your failure or refusal to comply with the subpoena shall constitute evidence of obstruction of the House's impeachment inquiry," wrote Intelligence chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; Foreign Affairs chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.; and Oversight chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md. Click the link to read the whole article. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-pompeo-ukraine-impeachment Please click on the "Heart" below to recommend the discussion.
MSNBC's Matthews on whistleblower complaint: Dems don't need more hearings, 'they've got him'9/26/2019
As he read the contents of the whistleblower complaint, MSNBC's Chris Matthews declared Thursday that Democrats have the evidence they need to impeach President Trump.
The complaint alleged that Trump used the "power of his office to solicit interference" from a foreign country in the 2020 election -- and that White House officials subsequently tried to "lock down" records of that phone call. "He sought to pressure the Ukrainian leader, to take action to help the president's 2020 reelection bid. There it is, that line. He did what he's been accused of doing. It's impeachable," said Matthews, reading from the complaint, along with fellow MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. "It's a moment, and Democrats, if they've got brains, and any political savvy– will grab this moment. No more hearings, no more subpoenas, no more contempt citations... they've got him." The rough transcript of the July call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was released a day earlier by the White House. It confirmed that Trump sought an investigation from Ukraine into the Biden family, though it did not show the president explicitly leveraging U.S. aid as had initially been suggested in some media reports. But the whistleblower complaint, released by the Democrat-led House Intelligence Committee ahead of testimony from Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, goes further, though it is not a first-hand account of the call. The whistleblower, who remains anonymous, says in the complaint that White House officials who heard the call were "deeply disturbed" by it, and that White House lawyers discussed how to handle the call "because of the likelihood, in the officials' retelling, that they had witnessed the president abuse his office for personal gain." "In the days following the phone call, I learned from multiple U.S. officials that senior White House officials had intervened to 'lock down' all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced -- as is customary -- by the White House Situation Room," the complaint says. https://www.foxnews.com/media/chris-matthews-whistleblower-complaint-impeachment-dems-got-him
Please click on the "Heart" below to recommend the discussion.
A defiant President Trump said during a press conference in New York Wednesday that he wants "full transparency" not only over the "so-called whistleblower" allegations leveled against him, but also "from Joe Biden and his son Hunter on the millions of dollars that have been quickly and easily taken out of Ukraine and China." Trump additionally demanded "transparency from Democrats who went to Ukraine and attempted to force the new president ... to do things that they wanted under the form of political threat. They threatened him if he didn't do things -- now that's what they're accusing me of, but I didn't do it." The aggressive move signaled that the White House would seek to turn the tables against Democrats who have initiated an impeachment inquiry, following the whistleblower's complaint that Trump had improperly pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden. Zelensky, speaking across from Trump just an hour earlier, told reporters he did not feel "pushed" at all in his conversations with the president. Click the link to read the whole article. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-holds-presser-amid-explosive-transcript-release-dems-impeachment-push Please click on the "Heart" below to recommend the discussion.
The White House on Wednesday released a transcript of President Trump’s July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky showing he sought a review of Biden family dealings in the country — but the document does not show Trump explicitly leveraging military aid as part of a quid pro quo, as Democrats have suggested in pressing forward with impeachment. The document, declassified by Trump a day earlier, indicates that the call – which Trump made from the White House residence -- took place July 25 from 9:03 a.m. to 9:33 a.m. A notation on the memo says it does not represent a "verbatim transcript" but is based on "notes and recollections" of those listening and memorializing the call. It is still presented in transcript form. Click the link to read the whole article. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ukraine-call-transcript-shows-trump-sought-biden-probe-but-made-no-mention-of-us-aid Please click on the "Heart" below to recommend the discussion.
WH to release document showing intel community watchdog found whistleblower had 'political bias'9/24/2019 A senior Trump administration official told Fox News late Tuesday that the administration will release a document showing the intelligence community inspector general found the whistleblower who leveled an explosive accusation against President Trump concerning his talks with Ukraine had “political bias” in favor of “a rival candidate” of the president. The official did not identify the name of the rival candidate. Separately, a senior administration official told Fox News the White House is working as quickly as it can to release to Congress the whistleblower complaint involving President Trump's conversations with the leader of Ukraine, as long as it's legally possible. The news came just hours after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi initiated a formal impeachment inquiry by alleging that the administration was hiding the complaint. The senior administration official told Fox News that the White House had nothing to hide, that there has been no wrongdoing, and that the White House's general position has been that it will make everything possible available to Congress or the public regarding Trump's conversations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the complaint to the intelligence community's inspector general. Click the link to read the whole article. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry-whistleblower-complaint-release-congress-white-house Please click on the "Heart" below to recommend the discussion.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced the formalization of an impeachment inquiry into President Trump Tuesday evening, saying "the president must be held accountable" for his "betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security, and the betrayal of the integrity of our elections." The speaker effectively endorsed the process, which to some degree has already been underway, after facing fresh pressure from inside the caucus to act. The move could help Democrats' disputed arguments in court that impeachment proceedings were in fact in progress, which could entitle Congress to obtain additional documents. Invoking the "darkest days of the American Revolution," Pelosi called on lawmakers to honor their constitutional oath to protect the country "from all enemies, foreign and domestic." Pelosi specifically charged that the administration had violated the law by not turning over a whistleblower complaint concerning Trump's July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Citing testimony that the director of national intelligence was blocking the release of that complaint, she said: "This is a violation of law. The law is unequivocal." Please click the link to read the whole article. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pelosi-expected-to-announce-formal-impeachment-inquiry-against-trump-at-5-pm-et Please click on the "Heart" below to recommend the discussion.
|
Archives
January 2024
|