Out Of Control FBI Cartoons

Alleged Russian Spy Cooperating Ahead of Hearing, U.S. Officials Say

In this courtroom sketch, Maria Butina, left, is shown next to her attorney Robert Driscoll, before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, during a court hearing at the U.S. District Court in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. Maria Butina, a Russian accused of being a secret agent for the Russian government, has pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in federal court in Washington. (Dana Verkouteren via AP)

Alleged Russian Spy, Maria Butina, pleads guilty to one-count of conspiracy against the U.S. on behalf of a Russian Official as apart of a plea deal.
The 30-year-old Russian National made the admission in federal court on Thursday, claiming she inflitrated U.S. political circles under the orders of Alexander Torshin, according to CNN. She initially plead not guility to the charges.
Prosecutors accused Butina of infilitrating groups like the National Rifle Association to establish informal lines of communications with powerful Americans and push Russian interests.
She is being held in solitary confinement in a nothern Virginia jail, where she has been held since her arrest in July.
Cooperation from an accused Russian Spy is highly unusual. U.S. prosecutors say Butina has been offering information about her American boyfriend and the Republican political operative who helped her network with conservative groups. However, it is unclear how much information she can offer on Russian influence operations.
Her attorney said her guilty plea was voluntary and she is happy with her legal representation.

Chris Christie, Trump meet to discuss chief of staff job, report says

Chris Christie, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, and President Trump reportedly discussed the open chief of staff job at a face-to-face meeting in Washington on Thursday. (Getty Images)

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and President Trump had a face-to-face meeting in Washington on Thursday to discuss the possibility of Christie replacing John Kelly as White House chief of staff, a report said.
Trump called Christie a “top contender” for the role, a source told Axios.
“He’s tough; he’s an attorney; he’s politically savvy, and one of Trump’s early supporters," the source added, referring to Christie, 56, who is also a former federal prosecutor.
Christie endorsed Trump after dropping out of the 2016 presidential campaign and also oversaw the transition process before the president took office.
A longtime friend of the president’s, Christie’s name was floated earlier this week as several rumors surfaced as to who could potentially replace Kelly.
“I am in the process of interviewing some really great people for the position of White House Chief of Staff,” Trump wrote Sunday in a tweet. “Fake News has been saying with certainty it was Nick Ayers, a spectacular person who will always be with our [Make America Great Again] agenda. I will be making a decision soon!”
But their relationship has been complicated by the fact that Christie, while a U.S. attorney in New Jersey from 2002 to 2008, convinced real estate developer Charles Kushner to accept a plea deal on corruption charges in 2004. Kushner, now 64, is the father of the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
The younger Kushner, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka and is already a White House adviser, met with the president on Wednesday to talk about his own candidacy for the chief of staff job, the Huffington Post first reported.
Christie’s name has previously come up as a possible attorney general before the president said last week that he will nominate William Barr, who led the Justice Department under former President George H.W. Bush.
Christie served two terms as governor of New Jersey, from January 2010 to January 2018. He left the office because of the state's term-limit laws.

FBI misses deadline to provide docs to Judiciary Committee probing whistleblower raid

The Justice Department and FBI have missed a Wednesday deadline to provide information about the government's mysterious raid on a former FBI contractor-turned-whistleblower's home last month.
Sixteen FBI agents on Nov. 19 raided the home of Dennis Nathan Cain, who reportedly gave the Justice Department's Inspector General (IG) documents related to the Uranium One controversy and potential wrongdoing by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The documents in question allegedly showed that federal officials failed to investigate possible criminal activity related to Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and Rosatom, a Russian nuclear company. Its subsidiary purchased Canadian mining company Uranium One in 2013.
OBAMA-ERA URANIUM ONE DEAL: WHAT TO KNOW
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, whose panel has oversight of the Justice Department, penned a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Justice Department IG General Michael Horowitz, requesting information on the justification for the raid. Grassley gave Wray and Horowitz until Dec. 12 to respond to his request.
That deadline has come and gone, and neither the FBI nor DOJ has produced any documents or response.
"We have not yet received answers to the chairman's questions on this matter," a Judiciary Commitee spokesperson told Fox News late Thursday.
The FBI consistently has refused Fox News' request for comment on the whistleblower raid and the Judiciary Committee's requests. On Thursday, an FBI spokesperson told Fox News the agency would respond only to inquiries from the entity that requested the documents -- in this case, the Judiciary Committee.
Questioning whether “we now live in a secret police state,” Cain took his frustration about the situation to Twitter earlier this week.
“So I blow the whistle on the FBI, get raided by the same FBI, and now they want to keep the FBI’s reasons secret? Do we now live in a secret police state? Feels a little like 1984,” Cain tweeted late Monday. The tweet eventually was deleted.
The Daily Caller requested that a court unseal the relevant search warrant materials, but the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, in a court filing, said: “the request should be denied.”
“Public disclosure of any search warrant materials would seriously jeopardize the integrity of the ongoing investigation,” the filing by the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. “Continued sealing is essential in order to guard against possible tampering of witnesses and destruction of evidence, to maintain the ability of the grand jury to investigate this matter, and to prevent the disclosure of sensitive investigative techniques and methods.”
A spokesperson for U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Robert K. Hur declined to comment.
Cain's lawyer, Michael Socarras, told The Daily Caller the agent who led the raid accused his client of possessing stolen federal property. In response, Cain reportedly claimed he was a protected whistleblower under federal law, and said he was recognized as such by Horowitz.
Socarras also claimed Horowitz had transmitted information on the sale of Uranium One to a Russian firm’s subsidiary to both the House and Senate intelligence committees.
A spokesperson for the inspector general declined to comment.
“As frustrating and violating as this feels to me and my family. I will continue to put my trust in God. Some day this life will pass away. I will stand before my maker with a clean concience[sic] and Jesus as my defender. Until then I continue to fight the good fight with God’s help,” Cain tweeted Monday night.
ANTI-TRUMP FBI AGENTS' PHONES COMPLETELY WIPED AS DOJ WATCHDOG LOOKS FOR THEIR TEXT MESSAGES
On Tuesday, he added: “Thank you for the outpouring of encouragement. You all are awesome. A boxer goes into his corner to rest for a minute, refocus, and get some sideline coaching. Then the bell rings and he’s ready to go another round. This fight is spiritual and God is in our corner. Ding! Rom 8:31.”
Fox News has previously reported that Douglas Campbell, an FBI informant involved in the Uranium One deal, has testified to lawmakers that Moscow paid millions to American lobbying firm APCO Worldwide to influence Clinton and the Obama administration.
“The contract called for four payments of $750,000 over 12 months,” Campbell said in his statement this past February. “APCO was expected to give assistance free of charge to the Clinton Global Initiative as part of their effort to create a favorable environment to ensure the Obama administration made affirmative decisions on everything from Uranium One to the US-Russia Civilian Nuclear Cooperation agreement.”
STATE DEPT PROVIDED 'CLEARLY FALSE' DOCS TO DERAIL CLINTON PROBE, 'SHOCKED' FEDERAL JUDGE SAYS
APCO has denied Campbell's claims while Clinton called any claims of wrongdoing related to the Uranium One deal "the same baloney they’ve been peddling for years, and there’s been no credible evidence by anyone.
"In fact," Clinton told C-SPAN in October 2017, "it’s been debunked repeatedly and will continue to be debunked.”
Separately, the DOJ and Special Counsel Robert Mueller face a Friday afternoon deadline to turn over documents related to their questioning of fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn's team has alleged the FBI pressured him not to have a lawyer at the White House meeting in January 2017, after which Flynn was charged on one count of lying to federal authorities.
Flynn -- who had to sell his house this year amid mounting legal bills -- later pleaded guilty to lying to agents about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador in December 2016 about sanctions that had recently been imposed by then-President Barack Obama. Flynn has since acknowledged seeking to convince Russia not to retaliate for those sanctions during the presidential transition period.
But Flynn's lawyers, in an explosive Tuesday court filing that threatens to upend his pending sentencing, charged that the FBI had not finalized their pivotal, and only, account of Flynn's statements until August 2017 -- nearly eight months after their interview with him. Fired FBI Director James Comey has since admitted the Flynn meeting broke normal agency protocol.