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.