Clinton Probe Cartoons

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.

Liberal Actor Cartoons

Gregg Jarrett: If Comey's in legal jeopardy, will Mueller ride to his rescue?

Hillary Clinton, thanks to James Comey, escaped criminal prosecution for violating the Espionage Act. 

Now it is Comey who may have violated that same law.  If he did, will Comey escape prosecution, courtesy of his good friend, Robert Mueller?

The fired FBI Director’s legal predicament comes as The Hill reports that Comey authored seven memorandums reflecting the contents of his conversations with President Trump and that four of the memos “have been determined to contain classified information.”
If this is true and Comey kept these documents in his personal possession upon leaving government service and conveyed some of them to another individual without authorization, then it would appear that he committed multiple felonies under the Espionage Act.
It is a crime to mishandle classified information:  18 USC 798 and 1924  prohibit a government official from removing a classified document from its proper place of custody to a location which is unsecure and disclosing it to an unauthorized person.  Is this what Comey did?  It sure looks like it.

How can Mueller discharge his responsibilities in a fair, objective and impartial manner? Will the mentor investigate and, if warranted, prosecute his protégé? Doubtful.

Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, stored 110 emails containing classified information on her home computer server, an unauthorized place.  Yet, Comey misinterpreted the criminal statute by claiming she did not “intend to violate the law.”  This is not the legal standard, as any knowledgeable lawyer will tell you.  Clinton was never indicted, though she should have been.
David Petraeus, former Director of the CIA, was not so fortunate.  He pled guilty to removing classified documents to his personal residence where he stored them in an unsecured drawer.  He also gave them to his biographer who was not authorized to receive them.
John Deutch, also a former CIA Director, agreed to plead guilty to keeping classified material on his unauthorized laptop computer, but was pardoned by President Bill Clinton just days before the formal charges were filed.
Comey insists the information contained in the memo he gave to his lawyer friend who leaked it to the media was unclassified.  If true, it is not a violation of the Espionage Act.  But if Comey gave his friend, Columbia University Professor Daniel C. Richman, any of the four documents containing classified information, then he committed one or more crimes.
Richman now claims he received four memos from Comey, but none were marked classified.  The good professor may not realize that the “marking” in no way determines its classified status.  The content dictates classification, as Fox News Chief Intelligence Correspondent Catherine Herridge has consistently pointed out.
Importantly, if Comey maintained these four documents in his personal possession, as his Senate testimony suggests, then he may have committed at least four more crimes in the same way that Clinton, Petraeus and Deutch did.  Again, it is a felony to keep documents containing classified information in an unauthorized place, such as your personal possession, home or private unsecured computer.
As explained in an earlier column, Comey likely violated another law.  All of his memos are, unquestionably, government property under the Federal Records Act and the FBI’s own Records Management regulations.  They were composed by him in the course and scope of his employment as the Director of the FBI.  In meeting with President Trump, Comey was not acting as a private citizen.  Both Congress and the FBI agree on this obvious point.
Therefore, the memos were not Comey’s to keep in his possession.  It is a crime to convert government property to your own personal use and then give it to another person.  18 USC 641 makes it a felony to “steal, sell or convey” such property to someone else without permission.
Comey’s conduct and whether it constitutes numerous crimes should be investigated by Special Counsel, Robert Mueller.  Yet, that is not likely to happen.  Why?
In a previous column, I described in detail how Mueller and Comey have been long-time close friends, allies and partners.  They have enjoyed a mentor-protégé relationship.
This is precisely why Mueller should have disqualified himself from serving under the special counsel statute (28 CFR 600.7 and 28 CFR 45.2).  His strong relationship to Comey creates a genuine conflict of interest and, at the very least, the appearance of impropriety.
How can Mueller discharge his responsibilities in a fair, objective and impartial manner?  Will the mentor investigate and, if warranted, prosecute his protégé?  Doubtful.
The prospect of prejudice and favoritism this case presents is anathema to the fair administration of justice.
The American people expect and deserve something better than a legal charade.
Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News Anchor and former defense attorney.

Cruz: Congress shouldn't recess until ObamaCare repealed, replaced

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, joined the growing chorus of lawmakers calling on Congress to forego its August recess until it passes legislation to repeal and replace ObamaCare. 

"It’s crazy that we would be taking a recess," Cruz told Fox News' "Hannity" Monday night. "There are a bunch of us, myself included, that have been urging leadership back from January [to] not take any recesses.

"Let’s work every day, let’s work weekends, let’s work until we get the job done," Cruz added. "We have a job to do and a short window of time, and so we ought to stop taking recesses, stop taking time off and just keep going until we get it done."
The former presidential candidate has found himself at the center of the Senate GOP's internecine warfare over healthcare legslation after Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., postponed a vote on legislation he had written largely in secret.
Cruz has proposed an amendment letting insurers sell any policies they wish, so long as they also offer polices that cover a list of services required by ObamaCare. Vice President Mike Pence endorsed the amendment Monday on Rush Limbaugh's radio show.
Cruz told host Sean Hannity Monday night that his amendment was "the knob of the battle" in the Senate. "[It] says you, the consumer, you have the right to choose what health insurance you want to buy."

Lawyer for Donald Trump Jr. says new NY Times report 'much ado about nothing'

A lawyer for Donald Trump Jr. late Monday dismissed a New York Times report that the president's eldest son knew that potentially damaging information on Hillary Clinton was offered as part of a Russian government effort to assist his father in last year's election.

The paper reported that music publicist Rob Goldstone indicated in an email to Trump Jr. that the Kremlin was the source of information about purported illegal campaign contributions to the Democratic National Committee provided by attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya.

"In my view, this is much ado about nothing," said attorney Alan Furtefas, who said that Goldstone had contacted Trump Jr. late in the Republican primary campaign and "suggested that people had information concerning alleged wrongdoing" by Clinton.
"The meeting [with Veselnitskaya] lasted about 20-30 minutes and nothing came of it," Furtefas went on. "His father knew nothing about it. The bottom line is that Don Jr. did nothing wrong."
The White House referred questions to the president's son. Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the president's outside legal team, would not comment on the Times story, reiterating only that the president "was not aware of and did not attend the meeting."
Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said the Times report proved "Donald Jr. was willing to accept the help of a hostile foreign government to sway the election. In the ensuing months, the Trump family watched as news of the Kremlin’s hacking campaign developed and they did nothing but celebrate and encourage it to continue.
"It is time for Donald Trump, his family, and his team to stop lying and come clean about their contacts with Russia, what they knew about the Kremlin’s effort to help them, and when they knew it," Watson added.
Goldstone confirmed earlier Monday that he had set up the meeting between Trump Jr. and Veselnitskaya on behalf of his client, singer Emin Agalarov.
In a statement Sunday, Trump Jr. acknowledged taking the meeting to learn damaging information about Clinton, but claimed that Veselnitskaya allegations were "vague, ambiguous and made no sense” and it “became clear that she had no meaningful information.”
The Times story, which cited three unnamed people with knowledge of Goldstone's email but did not relate the actual email text, was the third report in as many days concerning the meeting between Trump Jr. and Veselnitskaya.
In response to an Times report published Saturday, Trump Jr. said the meeting was primarily about allowing Americans to adopt Russian children and “mentioned nothing about Mrs. Clinton.” Responding to the paper's Sunday report, Trump Jr. acknowledged that he was told Veselnitskaya "might have information helpful to the campaign."
The Veselnitskaya meeting, which was also attended by Trump's then-campaign manager Paul Manafort and adviser Jared Kushner, is the first confirmed private meeting between members of President Trump’s inner circle and a Russian national. If the content of Goldstone's email is confirmed, it would be the first public word that Trump Jr. had been made aware the material could have been emanating from the Kremlin.
Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Monday the Kremlin doesn't know Veselnitskaya and "cannot keep track" of every Russian lawyer who holds meetings in Russia or abroad. Although she has not been publicly linked with the Russian government itself, Veselnitskaya represented the son of a vice president of state-owned Russian Railways in a New York money-laundering case settled in May before a trial.
Trump spent time with Agalarov during his visit to Moscow for the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which Trump owned at the time. The real estate mogul appeared in a music video with Agalarov and several pageant contestants. Agalarov's father, Aras, is a Russian developer who sought to partner with Trump on a hotel project in Moscow and tried to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin during the Miss Universe contest.
Earlier Monday, Trump Jr. tried to brush off the significance of the meeting, tweeting sarcastically, "Obviously I'm the first person on a campaign to ever take a meeting to hear info about an opponent ... went nowhere but had to listen."

Trump Jr. also said on Twitter he was willing to work with the Senate intelligence committee, one of the panels probing possible campaign collusion, "to pass on what I know."

Lawmakers on the committee from both parties said they indeed wanted to talk with the president's son. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the panel "needs to interview him and others who attended the meeting." Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., agreed, saying, "Based on his own admissions, this is an attempt at collusion."

Marine aircraft disaster: FBI seeks answers in Mississippi crash that killed at least 16

The FBI has reportedly joined local and state agencies to investigate what caused a U.S. Marine Corps KC-130 to corkscrew out of the sky and into a soybean field in Mississippi, killing at least 16.

The search for additional victims is continuing. The Marine Corps said the aircraft “experienced a mishap.” The plane spiraled down at about 4 p.m. in a field about 85 miles north of Jackson. The plane’s debris were scattered in a radius of about five miles.

Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks told The Associated Press that officials were still searching for bodies after nightfall.
"We're still searching the area," Banks said. "It's hard to find bodies in the dark."
Banks earlier told the Greenwood Commonwealth that 16 people were believed to be on board but would not confirm that information to the AP.
The Marine Corps says it operated the plane but has provided no information on where the flight originated or where it was going.
Alan Hammons, an official at Greenwood Airport, told WNCN that the aircraft suffered a “structural failure” at 20,000 feet. The Clarion Ledger reported that the plane departed from Naval Support Activity Mid-South Base in Millington, Tenn.
An intense fire fed by jet fuel hampered firefighters, causing them to turn to unmanned devices in an attempt to control the flames, authorities said. There were several high-intensity explosions.
Aerial pictures taken by WLBT-TV showed the skeleton of the plane burning, producing plumes of black smoke visible for miles across the flat landscape of the delta.
Austin Jones, who owns a neighboring farm, said the fire continued after sunset.
"It's burning worse now than it was early in the afternoon," said Jones. He said his son watched the plane go down while working on the farm and said it was smoking as it descended.
Officials did not have information on what caused the crash or where the flight originated.
Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and the Associated Press contributed to this report.