Wednesday, July 12, 2017
FBI document dump reveals secrets of Clinton probe as new director nominee faces Senate
Some 42 pages of highly redacted documents
from the FBI’s criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton's
mishandling of highly classified materials paint a picture of a serious,
but flawed investigation hindered by a lack of cooperation, according
to a key watchdog group.
The materials, all part of the
probe dubbed "Midyear Exam,” included several documents designated as
“grand jury material,” indicating the potential seriousness of the
investigation that would ultimately be ended by FBI director James Comey
in July, then restarted for a brief period in October before being shut
down for good.
One redacted exchange reveals a back and forth
subpoena response to the FBI from one of Mrs. Clinton's private
attorneys, Katherine Turner, a partner at Washington DC powerhouse firm
Williams & Connolly. In the document, Turner agreed to turn over one
of Mrs. Clinton's non-secure Apple iPads and two of her BlackBerrys to
the FBI.“The new records show how badly the Obama Justice Department and FBI mishandled the Clinton email investigation. "But neither smartphone received from the law firm contain SIM cards or Secure Digital (SD) cards, and a total of 13 mobile devices identified by the FBI as potentially using clintonemail.com email addresses were never located by Williams & Connelly.
"We are presuming there are still 13 devices at issue,” Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, told Fox News. “The new records show how badly the Obama Justice Department and FBI mishandled the Clinton email investigation. They get the equivalent of wiped phones from the Clinton lawyers and do nothing?"
READ THE DOCUMENTS
As extensively reported by Fox, Clinton would often task aides including Monica Hanley with finding and supplying the secretary of state's never-ending demand to use non-secure BlackBerrys for all her official government work. Some of Clinton's BlackBerrys wound up being pounded with hammers on orders by Huma Abedin after Clinton's homebrew servers went down or when news that Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal's email had been hacked in 2013 by the Romanian hacker known as "Guccifer"---Marcel Lehel Lazar.
The new documents offer a glimpse into the lawyering ballet inside the Beltway---as this surrendering of two BlackBerrys and one iPad by her private attorneys occurred just six days before Hillary Clinton, then the leading Democratic nominee for president, testified before Congress on Oct. 22, 2015 about the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.
In a photo captured in the Benghazi hearing, Turner and her law partner David Kendall pointedly flanked Clinton during her marathon testimony before the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Also hovering nearby was longtime Clinton aide Cheryl Mills, who was also at the epicenter of Clinton's deliberative use of a non-secure email system while she headed one of the most sensitive federal agencies in the U.S. government.
Mills, who was Clinton’s chief of staff and counselor at State, received immunity for her cooperation into the email investigation was permitted to be in the room while Clinton interviewed by the FBI in July 2016. Comey would later admit publicly that he had never heard of a potential witness representing the subject of an FBI investigation to be present during an interview with investigators.
Nearly a year has passed since Comey's then-boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, held her infamous tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton in Phoenix, Arizona. Eight days later, Comey announced on July 5, 2016, that "regarding the handling of classified information, our judgement is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case."
Comey made his determination despite noting that Clinton and her colleagues "were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," and even though 22 top secret email exchanges deemed too damaging to national security to release. Some of those exchanges contained Special Access Privilege (SAP) information characterized by intel experts as “above top secret."
"They (the FBI) were played by Mrs. Clinton's lawyers and didn't care,” Fitton said. “The Trump Justice Department needs to audit this mess and figure out if the Clinton matters need to be reopened or reinvigorated."
In the latest documents dumped by the FBI, a whopping 325 pages are cited as "total deleted pages." The 42 pages that were released and are only readable in parts include 177 redactions. The redactions include those made citing Freedom of Information Act exemptions under (b) (7) (e) in which the information is denied because revelations could “disclose investigation techniques.“
Now---64 days after James Comey was fired by President Donald Trump as the director of the FBI, Christopher Wray is scheduled to sit down before the Senate Judiciary Committee for the start his confirmation process.
Two former agents with the FBI told Fox News they hope that “the atmosphere is changed with a new director.”
Pamela K. Browne is Senior Executive Producer at the FOX News Channel (FNC) and is Director of Long-Form Series and Specials. Her journalism has been recognized with several awards. Browne first joined FOX in 1997 to launch the news magazine “Fox Files” and later, “War Stories.”
Don’t blame travel ban on Iranian cancer doctor being detained, sent back, Border Patrol says
The Iranian cancer researcher who was detained at
Boston's Logan International Airport along with his family and sent back
to his home country on Tuesday was not a result of President Trump's
travel ban, a spokeswoman from U.S. Customs and Border Partol said.
Stephanie Malin, the spokeswoman,
said Moshen Dehnavi and his family were detained for “reasons unrelated”
to Trump’s executive order. She said the stop was based on information
discovered during the agency’s review. She did not elaborate.
Dehnavi was arriving in the U.S. to start work at a prominent Boston hospital.Boston Children’s Hospital said in a statement earlier Tuesday that Dehnavi was prevented from entering the country with his wife and three young children despite holding a J-1 visa for visiting scholars.
“Boston Children’s hopes that this situation will be quickly resolved and Dr. Dehnavi and his family will be released and allowed to enter the U.S.,” hospital spokesman Rob Graham said in the statement. “
But Malin noted that visa applicants “bear the burden of proof” to meet all requirements and can be denied entry for a range of reasons, including health-related issues, criminality or security concerns.
The Supreme Court recently ruled the Trump administration could largely enforce its temporary ban on travelers from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. But the court said the ban can’t block people with a “credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”
Some advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Iranian American Council, suggested the detention might be a violation of the Supreme Court order.
“The family is very worried,” said Shayan Modarres, a lawyer for the D.C.-based council, which has been in contact with the family. “If it is a minor paperwork issue, then something needs to be told to the family so they can resolve it.”
At the very least, the incident shows how the administration’s political priorities are leading to “overzealous enforcement” of immigration laws, said Gregory Romanovsky, chair of the New England chapter of the American Immigration Lawyer’s Association.
“Exercising discretion is not what they’re comfortable doing anymore, especially if they’re dealing with someone from one of the six banned countries,” he said of local customs officials. “The travel ban and the whole anti-immigrant mood coming from the very top of this administration certainly affects their ability.”
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, a Democrat, told reporters he was waiting to hear more about the Dehnavis’ circumstances, but also suggested the case was an example of concerns with the travel ban.
“Many people, doctors and nurses and people who are students working in the world-class institutions that we have are going to be boxed out or left out of the country,” he said.
Study: Taxpayers Funding Costly Federal Grants for the Arts
A study by the Illinois based group,
Openthebooks.com found millions of dollars in federal arts grants is
going to wealthy non-profits, all paid for by taxpayers. The group is
one of the nation’s largest private database of government spending and
broke down the numbers on the National Endowment of Arts and Humanities.
Their findings suggest the majority of the grants go to wealthy
nonprofits, some of which already have endowments already over 1 billion
dollars.
Openthebooks.com CEO Adam Andrzejewski is a classical
violinist and a strong supporter of the arts, but he said he takes issue
with the public funding. “My daughters dance in the pre-professional
ballet. But, when it comes to public funding of the arts and prestigious
organizations with billion dollar balance sheets, there needs to be
reform in the funding.”
Andrzejewski said, according to the study, in terms
of non profit grant making there was ” 183 million dollars granted in
fiscal year 2016 and much or this, about 100 million dollars of it went
to organizations with over 10 million dollars of existing financial
assets. They didn’t need taxpayer money but they took it anyway.”
The group looked at 3,200 organizations that received
441 million dollars in federal grants last year. Organizations with
assets greater than 10 million dollars received 84 million of the
designated money. Those worth 1 million dollars received less than half
that.
Among those also includes those in the more obscure
category, like a sightseeing tour for saguaro cactuses in the Arizona
desert. “They green lit a ten thousand dollar grant so people
can go on a tour to see the saguaro cactus, to listen to the cactus,
to hear the cactus speak to them, and then share their findings on
social media.”
Andrzejewski said the purpose of the report is to elevate the debate for both sides by providing transparency.
President trump’s 2018 budget proposed doing away with
the National Endowment of the Arts and Humanities. He’s received
criticism for leaving “starving artists” out to dry.
However, Congress’s version slightly increases art funding by roughly 5 million dollars.
“What’s the purpose to compel working and middle class taxpayers to continue to fund the [Metropolitan Museum of Art]” asks Andrzejewski. “The Met has nearly 4 billion dollars in their bank accounts and financial assets.”
Pres. Trump Speaks Out on Son’s Meeting With Russian Lawyer
President Trump is speaking out about his sons meeting with a Russian lawyer last year.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the president said his son, Donald Trump Junior, is a high quality person and he “applauds his transparency.”
This comes after his eldest son released the entire email chain setting up the meeting.
He says he agreed to meet with a woman who supposedly had information that would be helpful to the Trump campaign.
Don Junior said that woman did not have anything useful to say at the meeting, and he and other members of the Trump campaign left when she started talking about a sanction put on Russian adoption.
The woman later admitted she was not an operative for the Kremlin.
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