Attorney General William Barr
has assembled a "team" to investigate the origins of the FBI's
counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign, an
administration official briefed on the situation told Fox News on
Tuesday.
Republicans repeatedly have called for a thorough
investigation of the FBI's intelligence practices and the basis of the
since-discredited Russian collusion narrative following the conclusion
of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe -- and they now appear to have assurances that a comprehensive review was underway.
The FBI's
July 2016 counterintelligence investigation was formally opened by
anti-Trump former FBI agent Peter Strzok. Ex-FBI counsel Lisa Page, with
whom Strzok was romantically involved,
revealed during a closed-door congressional interview that the FBI
“knew so little” about whether allegations against the Trump campaign
were “true or not true” at the time they opened the probe, noting they
had just “a paucity of evidence because we are just starting down the
path” of vetting the allegations.
Page
later said that it was “entirely common” that the FBI would begin a
counterintelligence investigation with just a “small amount of
evidence.”
Former FBI Director James Comey would testify later
that when agency initiated its counterintelligence probe into
possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and the Russian
government, investigators "didn't know whether we had anything" and that
"in fact, when I was fired as director [in May 2017], I still didn't
know whether there was anything to it."
President Trump greeting then-FBI Director James Comey at the White House on January 22, 2017.
(Reuters, File)
Barr told lawmakers at a contentious hearing earlier
Tuesday that he was reviewing the bureau's “conduct” in particular
during the summer of 2016. The attorney general's explosive testimony
marked his first Capitol Hill appearance since he revealed the central
findings of Mueller’s investigation, and he indicated the full report --
with redactions -- would be made public within the week.
Mueller's
investigation completed last month without securing the indictment of a
single American for collusion with Russia or obstruction of justice, "despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign."
“I
am reviewing the conduct of the investigation and trying to get my arms
around all the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that
was conducted during the summer of 2016,” Barr said at the hearing.
Barr
also was questioned about the initial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act (FISA) warrants approved to surveil members of the Trump campaign,
including former Trump aide Carter Page.
Republicans have called
for a careful review as to whether the FBI, in violation of Page's
constitutional rights and FBI procedures, misled the FISA court or
withheld exculpatory information, and Barr testified that a DOJ review
of the FBI's FISA practices was in progress.
The FBI's ultimately successful October 2016 warrant application
to surveil Page, which relied in part on information from British
ex-spy Christopher Steele – whose anti-Trump views are now
well-documented – flatly accused Page of conspiring with Russians. Page
has never been charged with any wrongdoing, and he since has sued the
Democratic National Committee (DNC) for defamation.
The FBI assured
the FISA court on numerous occasions -- in the October 2016 warrant
application and in subsequent renewals -- that other sources, including a
Yahoo News article, independently corroborated Steele's claims, without
evidence to back it up. It later emerged that Steele was also the
source of the Yahoo News article, written by reporter Michael Isikoff.
The FBI also quoted directly from a disputed Washington Post opinion piece
to argue that Trump's views on providing lethal arms to Ukraine, and
working towards better relations with Russia, was a possible indicator
that the campaign had been compromised.
The Trump campaign, at the
time, supported only providing only defensive arms to Ukrainians, and
rejected a single Republican delegate's proposed platform amendment that
called for providing lethal arms. Later, the Trump administration
changed course and approved lethal arms sales to Ukraine.
The
FBI did not provide its own independent assessment of whether the
Washington Post opinion piece contained accurate information, and did
not mention that the Obama administration had the same policy towards
arming Ukraine as the one Trump's team supported.
The FBI also did
not clearly state that Steele worked for a firm hired by Hillary
Clinton's campaign. Instead, the FBI only indicated that Steele's
dossier was prepared in conjunction with a presidential campaign.
Fox News exclusively obtained internal FBI text messages
last month showing that just nine days before the FBI applied for the
Page FISA warrant, bureau officials were battling with a senior Justice
Department official who had "continued concerns" about the "possible
bias" of a source pivotal to the application.
Fox
News also has been told the Justice Department's Inspector General (IG)
was looking separately into whether Comey mishandled classified
information by including a variety of sensitive matters in his private
memos.
A DOJ court filing on Monday night revealed that Comey incorporated into his private documents, among other key details, the name and code name of a confidential human source. Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., claimed climate change is a “major factor” of the global migrant crisis after
earlier suggesting that the United States would have “blood on our
hands” if legislation is not passed to tackle climate change.
“The
far-right loves to drum up fear & resistance to immigrants,” the
freshman congresswoman tweeted on Tuesday. “But have you ever noticed
they never talk about what‘s causing people to flee their homes in the
first place?
“Perhaps that’s bc they’d be forced to confront 1 major factor fueling global migration: Climate change.”
But for many migrants traveling from Central America, violent crime and extreme poverty are the driving forces of migration.
El Salvador has one of the highest murder rates in the world,
due in part, to gangs like MS-13, which was started by Salvadoran
immigrants in the U.S. and spread to El Salvador and other countries.
In Honduras, nearly two-thirds of the population, or almost 5.5 million people, live in poverty, according to the World Bank. Per capita income averages just $120 per month.
Earlier Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez discussed the role of global warming and national security
at a House Oversight Committee hearing with John Kerry, the former
Secretary of State, and Chuck Hagel, the former Secretary of Defense.
“So
I think what we have laid out here is a very clear moral problem and in
terms of leadership, if we fail to act or even if we delay in acting,
we will have blood on our hands?” asked Ocasio-Cortez. “I don’t know if
you’re allowed to agree with that Secretary Kerry or Secretary Hagel,
but would you agree with that assessment?”
Kerry responded that “we are complicit” as long as nothing is done to stem climate change.
“And
we’re going to contribute to people dying, we’re going to contribute to
trillions of dollars of damage to property and we will change the face
of life on this planet,” he said.
Ocasio-Cortez has championed the Green New Deal,
a radical measure that calls for a massive overhaul of the nation’s
economy and energy use to cut emissions. It is estimated to cost up to
$93 trillion or $600,000 per household, according to studies.
A test vote on the proposal recently failed in the Senate with no senator voting to begin debate on the legislation. Fox News' Chris Irvine and Frank Miles contributed to this report.
An overconfident Joe Crowley opted against using negative ammunition against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez because
he believed that he had the Democratic primary locked up and didn’t
want to look weak in a race he was expected to walk away with.
Crowley,
a longtime political power broker from Queens, was widely considered to
be perfectly situated to become then-House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi’s successor before his stunning defeat last June that propelled
the former waitress to the halls of Congress.
“Crowley had plenty
of fodder he could’ve used against Ocasio-Cortez, but his top New York
campaign operatives decided to take the punches and not hit back,”
Politico reporters Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer write in their new book,
“The Hill to Die On.”
“It wasn’t just that Crowley didn’t want to
go dirty; he thought it would be a sign of weakness in D.C. if he was
seen in a tight race against Ocasio-Cortez. He was supposed to be the
next Democratic leader, not someone who had to fight for reelection,”
the two write.
One piece of dirt Crowley decided against using was
questionable financing practices of Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign — which a
source said Crowley aides knew about before they became public this
year.
The
conservative National Legal and Policy Center filed a complaint with
the Federal Election Commission last month charging that Ocasio-Cortez’s
team used two affiliated political action committees to funnel hundreds
of thousands of dollars into a limited-liability company to evade
campaign finance laws.
Ocasio-Cortez has denied any wrongdoing.
Felicity Huffman has agreed to plead guilty in the college admissions cheating scandal that has entangled wealthy parents throughout the country.
On
Monday, the "Desperate Housewives" alum, 56, announced her decision,
explaining that she accepts "full responsibility" for her actions of allegedly paying $15,000 disguised as a tax-deductible charitable donation so her daughter could take part in an apparently rigged college entrance exam.
However, one name that was noticeably absent from the list of 14 defendants who agreed to enter guilty pleas was fellow actress Lori Loughlin –
a risk that may hurt the “Fuller House” star's chances of cutting a
favorable deal down the line, according to a former prosecutor.
Actress Felicity Huffman arrives holding hands with her brother
Moore Huffman Jr., left, at federal court in Boston on Wednesday, April
3, 2019, to face charges in a nationwide college admissions bribery
scandal.
(AP)
“Well, the deal for people who pled
out today – they got the best deal possible. Again, even though there
was the seven to nine [months of possible prison time], the deal is in
that zero to six range – which is the lowest you’re going to get,” former New York State prosecutor Adam Citron told Fox News after the plea deals were announced on Monday.
“It
obviously helps that they’re pleading quickly as not to drag out the
case and it shows that they’re accountable for their actions and they’re
showing remorse. I’m sure in the pre-trial interviews they present
themselves as remorseful and they’re already making statements showing
remorse. So these are not stupid people – they know how to act to get
the best deal and also play to the court to try and get the most lenient
sentence possible.”
Loughlin and designer husband Mossimo Giannulli, 55, are accused of agreeing to pay $500,000 in bribes to have their two daughters, 20-year-old Isabella and 19-year-old YouTube star Olivia Jade, designated as recruits for the USC crew team. Neither of their daughters are rowers.
Citron
noted that there is a possibility the 54-year-old Loughlin hadn’t yet
been offered a deal and indicated that she simply may not be a part of
the first round of defendants who cut deals in their cases.
“With
Lori Loughlin, it’s unclear and it’s possible that she may have not
even been offered anything yet. They could be saying, ‘We’ll do these
fifteen people this week and these people next week for interviews – or
if they’re holding her to an offering not as beneficial with a higher
jail sentence,” Citron explained.
Lori Loughlin, left, appears in this court sketch at the U.S.
federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, Calif. on March 13, 2019.
(REUTERS/Mona Shafer Edwards)
He
continued: “If I was her attorney and she was offered something not as
advantageous, my recommendation would be to kind of let the dust settle,
let these people plea out and have a couple more news cycles where
people start to lose attention to the case. So that’s very possible, but
it’s unclear whether they’ve offered her anything yet or if they’re
just waiting to offer her something when they do the next round of
people.”
“If I was her attorney, I would not be happy with how she acted.” — Former New York state prosecutor Adam Citron
When the “Beverly Hills: 90210” alum initially appeared in federal court in Los Angeles, a court sketch artist described Loughlin's demeanor as "a little arrogant." Additionally, while entering a Massachusetts court to face charges last week, Loughlin signed autographs and posed for selfies with fans – behavior that Citron says doesn’t aid her interests in the eyes of the court.
Lori Loughlin signs autographs and chats with fans the day before
her court hearing in Boston for her alleged role in a nationwide college
admissions scam. Loughlin and husband Mossimo Giannulli are accused of
using bribes to get their daughters admitted to USC.
(Backgrid)
“The optics look horrible for
Lori Loughlin. The court wants to see that you’re taking this seriously,
that you’re remorseful, that you’re accountable for your actions and
not treating it like it’s a concert. It’s a very serious proceeding with
serious charges with a lot of ramifications,” said Citron. “It’s very
serious – she should not have been treating this like it was a red
carpet affair. She feels unquenchable – she’s not taking this
seriously.”
“If I was her attorney, I would not be happy with how she acted.”
Despite
Loughlin’s behavior, Citron believes it’s possible the actress could be
putting on an about-face as a means of deflecting any anguish she may
be facing behind the scenes.
“It’s
possible that this is some sort of a defense mechanism and that she’s
going home at night and she is very shaken by this, which she should be –
and she doesn’t know how to react in such a situation, so her natural
defense mechanism is to kind of put on a smile and wave,” the lawyer
explained.
“It’s hard to say, but again – it’s going to be a
question that I’m sure any pre-sentence interviewer will be asking.
[Loughlin] definitely put doubt in the mind of whoever is interviewing
her for the pre-sentence report with respect to how truthful she’s being
if she does show that she’s remorseful. A judge could very easily at a
sentencing hearing ask her that question along the lines of, ‘It appears
you’re remorseful today, but how can you account for your actions at
the arraignment?’”
Reps for Loughlin did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., took to Twitter on Monday to criticize White House adviser Stephen Miller's influence on policy and called him a "white nationalist."
Miller
has been known for having a major influence over President Donald
Trump’s immigration policy and was reportedly instrumental in the ousting of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirsjen Nielsen.
“Stephen
Miller is a white nationalist,” Omar tweeted. “The fact that he still
has influence on policy and political appointments is an outrage.”
Her tweet sparked fierce backlash, many who point out that Miller is Jewish.
Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., posted on Twitter that he has never seen another member of Congress “target Jewish people like this.”
The
president’s son, Donald Trump Jr. also weighed in, calling her the
“head of the Farrakhan Fan Club” and that she “apparently has no shame.”
Omar’s office has not immediately Fox News’s request for comment.
House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes filed
a $150 million lawsuit in Virginia state court against The McClatchy
Company and others on Monday, alleging that one of the news agency's
reporters conspired with a political operative to derail Nunes'
oversight work into the Hillary Clinton campaign and Russian election
interference.
The filing, obtained by Fox News, came a day after Nunes, R-Calif., revealed he would send eight criminal referrals to
the Justice Department this week concerning purported surveillance
abuses by federal authorities during the Russia probe, false statements
to Congress and other matters.
In March, Nunes filed a similar $250 million lawsuit
alleging defamation against Twitter and one of its users, Republican
consultant Liz Mair. In Monday's complaint, Nunes again named Mair as a
co-defendant, charging this time that she conspired with McClatchy
reporter MacKenzie Mays to spread a variety of untruthful and misleading
smears -- including that Nunes "was involved with cocaine and underage
prostitutes" -- online and in print.
Reached for comment late Monday, Mair directed Fox News to a USA Today op-ed
she penned earlier this week concerning Nunes' previous lawsuit
entitled, "Free speech means I don't have to be nice to Devin Nunes on
Twitter. So why's he suing me?"
A spokesperson for McClatchy told
Fox News late Monday: "We have no comment and stand behind the strong
reporting of The Fresno Bee," the McClatchy-owned publication cited
throughout Nunes' lawsuit.
File-This Oct. 24, 2017, file photo shows House Intelligence
Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., speaking on Capitol Hill
in Washington. Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations
are pushing a conservative meme related to the investigation of Russian
election interference, researchers say. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
In a March story, the McClatchy DC Bureau reported that Nunes' previous lawsuit against Twitter and some of its users had only "amplified"
the visibility of his critics and the Internet trolls -- including one
named "Devin Nunes' Cow." Fox News is told Mair has not yet received
service of process, including an official copy of Nunes' complaint, in
either litigation.
Nunes' new complaint acknowledged the
sensitivity of filing a defamation and conspiracy lawsuit against
journalists but went on to allege that the defendants had "abandoned the
role of journalist, and chose to leverage their considerable power to
spread falsehoods and to defame" Nunes for "political and financial
gain."
"I'm coming to clean up the mess." — California GOP Rep. Devin Nunes
"They
need to retract everything they did against me, but they also need to
come clean with the American people," Nunes told Fox News' "Hannity"
Monday night. "Retract all of their fake news stories. This is part of
the broader clean-up. Remember, a few weeks ago, I filed against Twitter
-- they're censoring conservatives. McClatchy is one of the worst
offenders of this. But we're coming after the rest of them. I think
people are beginning to wake up now, I'm serious -- I'm coming to clean
up the mess."
The
complaint filed on Monday specifically cited a May 23, 2018 article
published by the Fresno Bee and written by Mays, entitled, "A yacht, cocaine, prostitutes: Winery partly owned by Nunes sued after fundraiser event."
The
article described a lawsuit's allegations of a 2015 party aboard the
yacht involving "25 of the Napa Valley-based [Alpha Omega Winery]'s top
investors, all men — [who] were openly using what appeared to be cocaine
and 'drawing straws' for which sex worker to hire."
That same day, Mays tweeted the article, mentioning Nunes in the same sentence as "cocaine and underage sex workers."
Nunes'
complaint accused Mays of "chos[ing] to emphasize the words 'woman,'
'Devin' and 'cocaine'" in her tweet. But, as Los Angeles Times national
correspondent Matt Pearce noted on Twitter shortly after this article was published,
those three words appear bolded only in the embedded tweet included in
Nunes' complaint -- as they would if a keyword search were performed on
Twitter for the words "woman," "Devin," and "cocaine."
In Mays' original tweet, however, the words are not bolded or emphasized.
Nunes
asserted in the complaint that the event on the yacht was not a
"fundraiser" at all, but rather a cruise resulting from a charitable
donation -- and one that McClatchy knew Nunes had nothing to do with.
"The
McClatchy headline intentionally omitted the word 'charity' and labeled
the event a 'fundraiser' in a clear effort to imply it was a political
fundraising event that a politician like Congressman Nunes would
naturally attend," the complaint stated.
Nunes said another line
in the story was false: "[i]t's unclear … if he [Nunes] was … affiliated
with the fundraiser." The congressman said the winery had told
McClatchy explicitly that Nunes was not affiliated with the event.
Nunes also countered that those aboard the yacht had no connection to the winery and were not investors.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif.,
being questioned by reporters on Capitol Hill in February 2017.
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
Additionally,
"online versions of the story are punctuated by a prominent picture of
Nunes and multiple film clips of him," creating a strong and
misleading implication, repeated by Twitter users and other journalists,
that Nunes was directly involved in the event on the yacht, the
complaint continued.
Defamation law prohibits not only provably
false statements but also heavy implications of falsities that harm
defendants' reputations. However, public figures like Nunes must meet a
high bar to prove defamation and must demonstrate that the defendants
recklessly or intentionally spread falsehoods, rather than merely
negligently.
Virginia, like many other states, includes robust
protections for journalists and other actors accused of defamation in
what is called an "anti-SLAPP statute." SLAPP stands for "Strategic
Lawsuit Against Public Participation."
In his complaint, Nunes
alleged that regardless, defamation law should not shield what he called
a knowing and deliberate effort to "destroy" his reputation. "Indeed,
the entire purpose of every element of the Yacht/Cocaine/Prostitutes
article – the headline, the photo, the film clips, and the text itself –
is to link Nunes to an event that McClatchy actually knew before
publication he had no involvement with," the complaint stated.
A
series of unmentioned "stealth edits" were made to the article
post-publication. The original article stated that the winery serviced
"Russian clients while the congressman was at the helm of a federal
investigation of Russian meddling into the presidential election."
Eventually
the sentence was changed to make it clear that the wine sales to
Russians came years before the Russia probe began: "Nunes' ties to [the
winery] made national headlines last year because it was discovered the
winery sold wine to Russian clients in 2013. The discovery came amid
Nunes' ongoing involvement in a federal investigation of Russian
meddling into the presidential election."
In
other articles, McClatchy also referenced Mair, the political operative
whose LinkedIn profile included the boast that she "anonymously smears"
targets on the Internet. Mair also has said Nunes had "issues" and she
was "going after him."
"The fact is, the [Federal Election
Commission] is not going to look favorably on a dude who uses his
tax-exempt political entity like a personal slush fund, flying himself
to Boston to watch them while apparently engaging in no activity
relevant to the purpose of the political organization,’ said Liz Mair," read one article published by McClatchy DC Bureau on
July 19, 2018. "McClatchy failed to inform readers of Mair’s employment
with Mair Strategies, an opposition research company that, in Mair’s
own words, 'smears' targets for paying clients," the complaint stated.
Protesters held signs as Rep. Devin Nunes visited Fresno, Calif., in March 2017.
(AP Photo/Scott Smith, File)
On July 11, 2018, Mays authored an article that
referred to an "ethics complaint" filed against Nunes by the Swamp
Accountability Project. That group is run by Mair, whom the article
identified only as "a political commentator who formerly worked for the
Republican National Committee."
"Mays concealed the fact that Mair
is an opposition research operative who admittedly smears targets, such
as Nunes, for pay from as-yet anonymous clients," the complaint said.
"This was a crucial omission, since it would have revealed Mair’s
motives and cast grave doubt on her credibility and veracity and on the
credibility and veracity of her handlers."
Even as the editorial board of the Fresno Bee doubled down on the reporting,
Nunes said, other outlets refused to publish similar stories -- in
contrast to McClatchy's willful abandonment of journalistic standards,
the complaint alleged.
One newspaper, the Visalia Times-Delta,
wrote that it "did not pursue the story because editors decided the
lawsuit’s ties to Nunes were tenuous. There were no allegations that
Nunes was involved in any way with the charity event, aside from being
an investor in the winery."
The
complaint also read: "The purpose of the concerted defamation campaign
was to cause immense pain, intimidate, interfere with and divert Nunes’
attention from his investigation of corruption and alleged Russian
involvement in the 2016 Presidential Election. The substance and timing
of the publication of McClatchy’s online articles and the tweets,
retweets, replies and likes by Mair and McClatchy reporters demonstrates
that McClatchy and Mair were engaged in a joint effort, together and
with others, to defame Nunes and interfere with his duties, employment
and investigations of corruption as a United States Congressman."
It
continued: "The attacks on Nunes were pre-planned, calculated,
orchestrated and undertaken by multiple individuals acting in concert,
over a continuous period of time throughout 2018. The full scope of the
conspiracy, including the names of all participants and the level of
involvement of any agents or instrumentalities of foreign governments,
is unknown at this time and will be the subject of discovery in this
action." Fox News' Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.
President Trump greeting then-FBI Director James Comey at the White House on January 22, 2017.
(Reuters, File)
