Former top FBI lawyer personally involved in FISA warrant for Trump aide, other Russia probe irregularities, transcript shows

A former top FBI lawyer acknowledged he was personally involved in the warrant application to surveil then-Trump campaign aide Carter Page and confirmed other "unusual" steps taken in the FBI’s Russia probe in 2016, during a closed-door congressional interview.
“I was aware of the [Russia] investigation,” James Baker told House investigators in October. Fox News has confirmed details of the transcript which is still under government review before its public release.
Baker said he was briefed on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant “as time went by” and recalled how he got involved early in the process. The warrant relied heavily on the unverified anti-Trump dossier, which was financed by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign via the law firm Perkins Coie.
“I don't want to see it at the end, like when it is about to go to the director [for] certification, because then it is hard to make changes then," Baker told House investigators when Republicans controlled the chamber. "So I wanted to see it when it was gelled enough but before it went through the process and before it went to the director. I wanted to see it and I wanted to read it because I knew it was sensitive."
Fox News confirmed the Baker transcript also includes the following exchange with investigators regarding his involvement in the surveillance application:
Question: "So that is why you took the abnormal or unusual step in this particular situation because it was sensitive?"
Baker: "Yes."
Question: "So you actually got involved because you want to make sure that, what?"
Baker: "I wanted to make sure that we were filing something that would adhere to the law and stand up over time."
Baker also told lawmakers, as part of the joint investigations by the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees, that it was not routine for him to get involved personally in such matters.
"I did not ... at that point in time when I was at the FBI ... almost all of the FISA applications did not go through me," he said.
Fox News first reported last fall that Baker said his contact with a top lawyer working with the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign in late 2016 -- as federal investigators prepared the surveillance warrant -- also was unusual.
Baker said Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann initiated contact with him and provided documents, describing the contact with the private lawyer as unusual and the “only time it happened.”
Perkins Coie was a key player in the funding of the controversial anti-Trump dossier, which Republicans have long suspected helped fuel the FBI’s investigation. The DNC and Clinton campaign had hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS in April 2016, through Perkins Coie, to dig into Trump’s background. Fusion, in turn, paid British ex-spy Christopher Steele to compile the dossier, memos from which were shared with the FBI in the summer of 2016.
Asked about Baker’s statements in October, however, a Perkins Coie spokesperson said Sussmann’s contact was not connected to the firm’s representation of the DNC or Clinton campaign.
The spokesperson said in a statement: “Prior to joining Perkins Coie, Michael Sussmann served as a cybercrime prosecutor in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice during both Republican and Democratic administrations. As a result, Sussmann is regularly retained by clients with complex cybersecurity matters.
“When Sussmann met with Mr. Baker on behalf of a client, the meeting was not connected to the firm’s representation of the Hillary Clinton Campaign, the DNC or any Political Law Group client.”
Since then, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., formally requested further information from the FBI about the contact. Further, conservative watchdog Judicial Watch launched a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in December against "the Department of Justice seeking records of all meetings in 2016 between former FBI General Counsel James Baker and the Perkins Coie law firm."
Fox News reached out to representatives for Baker and Perkins Coie to provide additional comment or context. The Epoch Times earlier reported some details from the Baker transcript.

Donald Trump Jr. compares Buzzfeed coverage to Catholic HS confrontation, says Schiff leaking

Donald Trump Jr., in an exclusive interview Monday night with Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle," again accused House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff of orchestrating a series of inaccurate leaks aiming to damage the White House, saying there is a "99.9 percent chance he's the guy that was leaking my testimony as I was testifying" in 2017.
Trump Jr. also compared Thursday's discredited BuzzFeed article, which alleged that President Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, to the media coverage this weekend surrounding a widely documented encounter near the Lincoln Memorial involving several pro-Trump Catholic high school students, black activists shouting homophobic slurs, and a Native American man.
"You had some Catholic schoolboys that were at a right-to-life march, okay? They were wearing a MAGA hat," Trump Jr. said. "They had to pounce because the media wants that to be true. They want a bunch of nice, Catholic kids -- happen to be white -- they want them to be the enemy."
Many liberal and conservative commentators criticized the students -- and, in some cases, called for them to be personally harassed and their school closed -- based on initial, incomplete videos of the encounter,  only to walk back their comments after a fuller video showed that the students themselves had been harassed, and that the students did not appear to approach the Native American man or the activists at any point.
BUZZFEED REPORTER UNABLE TO EXPLAIN KEY DISCREPENCY IN POST-ARTICLE STATEMENTS; CNN ANCHOR RIPS BUZZFEED'S 'DERELICTION OF DUTY'
And after the BuzzFeed article was published, some commentators and top Democrats said it raised the possibility the president should be impeached if it were accurate.
"They need it to be true, Laura," Trump Jr. added. "They've been pushing this nonsense for two years. They've found nothing. ... If you're not sure it's true, don't push it for 14 hours straight."
He continued: "This isn't the first time that happened. You saw it right after I did my testimony, and they said, 'Oh, Donald Trump Jr. had the Wikileaks information,' because presumably, Adam Schiff leaked it right after my testimony to them, and conveniently took out the one before the four, turning the 14th into the 4th, meaning I had it six days before the world saw it, as opposed to four days after the entire world saw it."
In late 2017, CNN senior congressional correspondent Manu Raju reported that Trump Jr. had received early, private access to Wikileaks documents -- a story that turned out to be entirely false.
BuzzFeed News investigative reporters Anthony Cormier and Jason Leopold authored the discredited report on Thursday, citing two law enforcement officials who said Michael Cohen had acknowledged to Special Counsel Mueller’s office that President Trump told him to lie to Congress about a potential real-estate deal in Moscow, and claim that the negotiations ended months before they did so as to conceal Trump’s involvement.

BuzzFeed News has come under fire for its sourcing and reliability, after its bombshell report Thursday purporting to demonstrate that President Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress was denied in an unusual statement from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office. (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid)

The article claimed that "internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents" confirmed Trump's instruction to Cohen. But Mueller issued his first public statement in more than a year to repudiate the BuzzFeed report just one day later, asserting in a brief statement that BuzzFeed's story was "not accurate."
The Washington Post has since reported that Mueller intended his rare denial to mean that the story was "almost entirely incorrect," and that the special counsel's office immediately "reviewed evidence to determine if there were any documents or witness interviews like those described, reaching out to those they thought might have a stake in the case. They found none."
And Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani told Fox News on Monday that his team communicated with Mueller's office last week about the BuzzFeed article -- and agreed a significant portion of it was false.

"They've been pushing this nonsense for two years. They've found nothing."
— Donald Trump Jr.

"There are no texts and emails or other documents to corroborate BuzzFeed's claim for the simple reason that it is not true," Giuliani told Fox News. "Whoever is responsible for this is lying." He added: "We commend them for standing up for the truth," referring to Mueller’s team.
Leopold has been involved in numerous scandals during his career related to his false reports, including one in 2002 for Salon.com about Enron that the outlet said was "riddled with inaccuracies and misrepresentations," and another incorrect story in 2006 for Truthout.org about supposedly pending indictments against former George W. Bush aide Karl Rove.
In an interview with CNN on Sunday, Cormier declined to explain why Leopold had claimed to have seen the documents proving that Trump had ordered Cohen to lie to Congress -- contradicting Cormier's insistence in a separate post-article interview on Friday that he had not personally seen the documents.
"We can't get into, like, the details there," Cormier, sitting next to BuzzFeed News Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith, told CNN's "Reliable Sources" host Brian Stelter. "We really can't go any further at all, in order not to jeopardize our sources."
Leopold did not appear for the interview, which occasionally became tense as Stelter openly criticized BuzzFeed's journalistic practices. Smith claimed Leopold, who has been out of the public view since Friday, was busy "reporting."
In an interview on Friday, Cormier told CNN, “No, I’ve not seen it personally,” when asked if he had seen the documents mentioned in the story that purportedly showed Trump told Cohen to lie.
Cormier only claimed that the two sources he cited were “fully, 100 percent read-in to that aspect of the special counsel’s investigation.”
However, Leopold, speaking separately to MSNBC, remarked that, "I don’t think we’ve said we haven’t seen [the documents]" and clarified, "I’ll say we’ve seen documents and been briefed."

FILE - In this June 21, 2017, file photo, special counsel Robert Mueller departs Capitol Hill following a closed door meeting. Mueller's office issued its first public statement in well over a year on Friday, to discredit a BuzzFeed report on its Russia probe. (AP)

Leopold later suggested that he meant to say that he has seen the documents, but that Cormier has not, telling Mediaite, "Yes. Anthony said HE had not personally seen the documents.”
Cormier added in the interview with Stelter on Sunday: "I have further confirmation that this is right. We are being told to stand our ground … The same sources that we used in that story are standing behind it, as are we.”
But Smith and Cormier also acknowledged they were not aware of the precise language Trump would have used in instructing Cohen to lie. Stelter, in the interview, also slammed Leopold's terse request for comment to Mueller's office, sent just hours before the article was published, as a "dereliction of duty" by the publication.
President Trump has called BuzzFeed's decision to publish the discredited article "disgraceful," and Vice President Mike Pence charged on Sunday that the media was "obsessed" with taking down Trump.
"It was remarkable what we saw happening for 24 hours in the media, on the basis of the report that appeared in BuzzFeed," Pence told "Fox News Sunday" anchor Chris Wallace. "It's one of the reasons why people are so frustrated with many in the national media."

Obama Inaugural Cartoons (Remember him?)

Trump administration marks 2 years since inauguration

On Jan. 20, 2017, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, pledging emphatically to empower America’s “forgotten men and women.” Protesters made their voices heard not far from the inaugural parade.
Two years later, those closest to him, however, celebrated on social media.
First lady Melania Trump tweeted: It has been an unforgettable two years in the @WhiteHouse. I am honored to serve this great nation!”
WHERE TRUMP STANDS ON CAMPAIGN PROMISES 2 YEARS INTO TERM
The photo attached showed her and the president dancing at his inaugural ball.
Vice President Mike Pence tweeted: “Honored to serve as @POTUS Trump’s Vice President these past two years, working to deliver historic results for the American people - an economic boom, rolling back red tape, rebuilding our military & restoring American leadership on the world stage. PROMISES MADE, PROMISES KEPT!”
“Promises made, promises kept” has been a tagline for the Trump administration that has projected itself as a government of doers for the people, whose ideology is “America First.”​

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slams Aaron Sorkin for telling new Dems to 'stop acting like young people'

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., fired back Sunday at liberal writer-director Aaron Sorkin. (AP, Getty, File)

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fired back Sunday at liberal Hollywood writer-director Aaron Sorkin after he claimed that the new Democrats in Congress should “stop acting like young people.”

Sorkin, creator of “The West Wing,” talked about politics and the current state of America during an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. The average age of Congress’s new freshman class is 49, making it the youngest class in the past three cycles.

Sorkin noted the Democrats have gotten too progressive. “I think there’s great opportunity here, now more than ever, for Democrats to be the non-stupid party,” he said.
He also said Democrats need to think more about average Americans: “...That we haven’t forgotten the economic anxiety of the middle class but we’re going to be smart about this, we’re not going to be mean about it.”
Ocasio-Cortez, who was sworn in earlier this month as a Democratic congresswoman from New York, hit back by citing some of her platforms.
“News Flash: Medicare for All & equal rights aren’t trends,” 29-year-old Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman elected to the House, tweeted attaching the Sorkin video.
“When people complain about low turnout in some demos, it’s not because communities are apathetic, it’s bc they don’t see you fighting for them,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “If we don’t show up for people, why should you feel entitled to their vote?”
JAMES WOODS CALLS OCASIO-CORTEZ 'DANGEROUS,' BUT RESPECTS HER
She spent the next hour on Twitter, tweeting in response.
“Men have ‘gravitas,’ women get ‘likeable,’” she said, bringing up identity politics.
She added: “If you notice, on the right they’ll flatly call people blanket terms, and even make things up. And I don’t mean trolls - I mean their biggest commentators + TV figures.”
Members of the historic freshman class of House Democrats — together — helped flip the House from Republican control in November’s elections.
The celebrity-studded group includes a record number of women, a new crop of veterans and diversity never before seen in Congress.

Trump thanks federal workers awaiting paychecks, calling them 'great patriots,' as partial shutdown hits 30 days

With hundreds of thousands of federal workers set to face another federal pay period without paychecks, President Trump thanked the “great patriots” for their service and dedication — 30 days into the partial government shutdown.
Trump tweeted Sunday night: “To all of the great people who are working so hard for your Country and not getting paid I say, THANK YOU - YOU ARE GREAT PATRIOTS! We must now work together, after decades of abuse, to finally fix the Humanitarian, Criminal & Drug Crisis at our Border. WE WILL WIN BIG!”
Employees of the Transportation Security Administration are among the estimated 460,000 federal employees who have been working without pay. The agency has been experiencing far higher than usual unscheduled absences during the shutdown — and now the agency said staffers have been calling out of work because they can’t afford to get there.
According to a Sunday release, “many employees are reporting that they are not able to report to work due to financial limitations.”
Indeed, the agency said that, on Saturday, 8 percent of employees skipped work compared to 3 percent a year ago.
The disruption has forced screening area closures at some airports, including at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, where “Checkpoint A” was closed Saturday.
Still, TSA reports that, on Saturday, 99.9 percent of passengers waited less than 30 minutes and 93.8 percent waited less than 15 minutes.
Democrats and Republicans appeared no closer to ending the impasse Sunday than when it began, with Trump lashing out at his opponents after they dismissed a plan he’d billed as a compromise.
Trump had offered the previous day to temporarily extend protections for young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children and those fleeing disaster zones in exchange for $5.7 billion for his border wall. But Democrats said the three-year proposal didn’t go nearly far enough.
The criticism from both sides underscored Trump’s boxed in-position as he tries to win at least some Democratic buy-in without alienating his base.
Democrats say there’s little chance the measure will reach the 60-vote threshold usually required to advance legislation in the Senate. Republicans have a 53-47 majority, which means they need at least some Democrats to vote in favor.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has agreed to bring up legislation this week based on the proposal Trump outlined Saturday. It’s also unclear how McConnell will bring Trump’s plan forward — or when voting will begin. The Republican leader from Kentucky is a well-known architect of complicated legislative maneuvers. One question is whether he would allow a broader immigration debate with amendments to Trump’s plan on the Senate floor.

BuzzFeed, Covington, NFL controversies make for busy weekend in Court of Public Opinion

From left: Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, the subject of a recent BuzzFeed article; student Nick Sandmann of Covington, Ky., and others near the Lincoln Memorial; and New Orleans Saints wide receiver Tommylee Lewis (11) and Los Angeles Rams defensive back Nickell Robey-Coleman (23). (Associated Press/Survival Media Agency)

Three separate high-profile controversies -- involving politics, the media, a spontaneous public confrontation and sports -- inspired a great deal of debate on social media over the weekend. Whether anything resembling consensus emerged regarding any of the three was another matter for debate.
The dizzying pace began Thursday night after BuzzFeed News issued a bombshell report, now discredited, that cited two law enforcement officials who alleged that President Trump told his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about a potential construction project in Moscow, and claim the negotiations ended months before they did so as to conceal Trump’s supposed involvement.
The claims were enough to prompt a rare statement from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office, that the report was “almost entirely incorrect.” But BuzzFeed offered no corrections or admission of wrongdoing.
Instead, BuzzFeed News investigative reporter Anthony Cormier, appearing Sunday on CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” doubled down on the report, telling host Jake Tapper: “We’re being told to stand our ground. Our reporting is going to be borne out to be accurate, and we’re 100 percent behind it. The same sources that we use in that story are standing behind it, as are we.”
When asked Friday if he had personally seen the documents mentioned in the story, which proved Trump had ordered Cohen to lie to Congress, Cormier told CNN: “No, I’ve not seen it personally.”
By Sunday, the New York Times was writing about BuzzFeed's record of pushing "the limits" on journalistic credibility, noting that it was the same media outlet that had reported on the also discredited Steele dossier containing salacious allegations about President Trump.
The previous evening, the Washington Post noted that an email that BuzzFeed had sent to Mueller's team, warning them in advance about the story, mentioned that BuzzFeed planned to report about the newest allegations against Trump, but did not inform the special counsel that it also planned to write that the Mueller allegedly possessed evidence of Trump wrongdoing -- a detail that attracted much attention to the story but that also may have prompted the Mueller team's post-publication statement that BuzzFeed's reporting was "not accurate."
The public's doubts also began to emerge, via social media.
The debacle even prompted the left-wing outlet, "The Intercept" to publish an article titled: "Beyond BuzzFeed: The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing U.S. Media Failures on the Trump/Russia Story," in which BuzzFeed's now-discredited story ranked second.
President Donald Trump called BuzzFeed's story "disgraceful," and the reason why the "Mainstream Media will have a hard time restoring credibility."
Meanwhile, a Kentucky high school student was charging "character assassination" Sunday, after a widely viewed video showed him standing face-to-face with a Native American amid a backdrop of jeering protesters in Washington.
The video drew accusations of racism against Nick Sandmann and other students from Covington Catholic High School, and the matter prompted school officials and the local Roman Catholic diocese to issue an apology regarding the students' behavior.
But after other footage emerged, many people began regarding the situation as being more complicated than depicted in the original viral video -- with some saying the school and diocese had no reason to apologize.
The new footage revealed tension developing before the confrontation, with an off-camera voice heard saying, "White people, go back to Europe where you came from," as Nathan Phillips, a 64-year-old Native American man, stood inches away from the students, banging a drum.
Then, apparently the same voice said, "This is not your land." The full context of the quotes was unclear.
By Sunday, U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., was asserting that the students had been treated unfairly -- and many people on social media seemed to agree.
Also on Sunday, student Sandmann shared his side of the story in a statement.
“I believed that by remaining motionless and calm, I was helping to diffuse the situation,’’ Sandmann wrote. “I realized everyone had cameras and that perhaps a group of adults was trying to provoke a group of teenagers into a larger conflict.’’

“I believed that by remaining motionless and calm, I was helping to diffuse the situation. I realized everyone had cameras and that perhaps a group of adults was trying to provoke a group of teenagers into a larger conflict.’’
— Nick Sandmann, Covington Catholic High School student

In yet another stunning weekend controversy, the Los Angeles Rams are on their way to the Super Bowl after a 26-23 victory over the New Orleans Saints in Sunday's NFC Championship Game, thanks to what some say was the referees' failure to call a pass-interference penalty that would have aided a New Orleans scoring drive.
Los Angeles cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman put what looked like a helmet-to-helmet hit on New Orleans receiver Tommylee Lewis well before the pass arrived inside the 5-yard line, forcing the Saints to settle for Wil Lutz's 31-yard field goal and only a 3-point lead with 1:41 left in regulation time.
Rams placekicker Greg Zuerlein later sent the game into overtime with a 57-yard field goal. Then New Orleans got the ball first in the overtime period, but quarterback Drew Brees had a pass intercepted by L.A.'s John Johnson III.
The Rams were able to gain only 15 yards, but that was just enough room for Zuerlein to kick another field goal, sending the franchise to its first Super Bowl since the 2001 season.
Social media users had plenty to say about the NFL referees' non-call that led to the overtime, including calling their vision into question.
But Rams fans didn't seem to mind the circumstances surrounding their team's victory.

Obama State of the Union Cartoons (Remember When)