Tag: FBI

Horowitz report severely undermines Barr’s conspiracy theories

AlterNet logoAccording to the report just released by the Justice Department’s Inspector General, the FBI initiated investigations of four people in August 2016, including George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, and Carter Page. We might note that three of those men were convicted of felonies by the Mueller team. On Page, the Mueller report states that “the investigation did not establish that Page coordinated with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.” And yet Page wasn’t exactly exonerated.

Investigators separately scrutinized a trip Page took to Moscow in July of 2016, where he delivered two speeches criticizing US policy toward Russia. Page met with several friends and associates, according to the report, and informed Trump campaign officials of “strong support” for the then candidate Trump within the Russian government.

What follows are redactions and an admission by the special counsel that aspects of Page’s travel to Russia are still unknown:

Continue reading

Watchdog report finds FBI not motivated by political bias in Trump probe

The Hill logoThe Justice Department inspector general on Monday released a long-awaited report that found FBI agents were not motivated by political bias in opening investigations into associates of the Trump campaign in 2016.

The report, however, sharply criticizes the FBI over its handling of applications to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, providing fodder for Trump and his Republican allies while at the same time undercutting a key GOP talking point that agents driven by bias improperly targeted then-candidate Trump.

The findings released by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz set the stage for a partisan showdown on Capitol Hill, where he is slated to testify publicly Wednesday to answer questions from a Senate panel about the inquiry into the FBI’s Russia probe.

Continue reading

This ‘unemployed rock musician’ and son of a late Deutsche Bank exec offered a trove of documents to the FBI and House Democrats

AlterNet logoOn Tuesday, David Enrich of The New York Times profiled Val Broeksmit — an “unemployed rock musician with a history of opioid abuse and credit card theft” and a “dalliance with North Korea-linked hackers” who also happens to be the son of a deceased executive at Deutsche Bank, the international institution notorious for providing President Donald Trump with much of his business credit.

Broeksmit, Enrich reported, has been in touch with the FBI and members of the House Intelligence Committee, trying to blow the whistle on what he believes is far-reaching corruption — and is offering a cache of documents to back it up.

“For more than five years, Val Broeksmit has been dangling his Deutsche Bank files in front of journalists and government investigators, dreaming of becoming the next great American whistle-blower,” wrote Enrich. “He wants to expose what he sees as corporate wrongdoing, give some meaning to his father’s death — and maybe get famous along the way. Inside newsrooms and investigative bodies around the world, Mr. Broeksmit’s documents have become something of an open secret, and so are the psychological strings that come attached. I pulled them more than anyone, as part of my reporting on Deutsche Bank for The New York Times and for a book, ‘Dark Towers,’ to be published next year. It has been the most intense source relationship of my career.”

View the complete October 1 article by Matthew Chapman from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

FBI Warning That Conspiracy Theorists May Pose Domestic Terror Threat

The FBI has issued a warning identifying several conspiracy theories aligned with Trump’s supporters as a domestic terror threat.

On Thursday, Yahoo! News reported on the existence of an FBI intelligence bulletin that was sent out in May identifying “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists” as a growing threat.

“The document specifically mentions QAnon, a shadowy network that believes in a deep state conspiracy against President Trump, and Pizzagate, the theory that a pedophile ring including Clinton associates was being run out of the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant (which didn’t actually have a basement),” Yahoo! reported.

View the complete August 2 article by Oliver Willis on the National Memo website here.

FBI’s Wray says most domestic terrorism arrests this year involve white supremacy

The Hill logoFBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday that the agency has made about 100 domestic terrorism-related arrests since October, and the majority were tied to white supremacy.

”I will say that a majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence, but it does include other things as well,” Wray said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, referring to cases in fiscal 2019, which began Oct. 1.

The FBI is “aggressively” investigating domestic terrorism and hate crimes, Wray said, noting that the bureau is focused on investigating the violence, not the ideology motivating the attacks.

View the complete July 23 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

FBI, ICE find state driver’s license photos are a gold mine for facial-recognition searches

Washington Post logoA cache of records shared with The Washington Post reveals that agents are scanning millions of Americans’ faces without their knowledge or consent.

Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have turned state driver’s license databases into a facial-recognition gold mine, scanning through millions of Americans’ photos without their knowledge or consent, newly released documents show.

Thousands of facial-recognition requests, internal documents and emails over the past five years, obtained through public-records requests by researchers with Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology and provided to The Washington Post, reveal that federal investigators have turned state departments of motor vehicles databases into the bedrock of an unprecedented surveillance infrastructure.

Police have long had access to fingerprints, DNA and other “biometric data” taken from criminal suspects. But the DMV records contain the photos of a vast majority of a state’s residents, most of whom have never been charged with a crime.

View the complete July 7 article by Drew Harwell on The Washington Post website here.

Jared Kushner doesn’t know whether he’ll alert the FBI if Russian officials offer political help in 2020

Jared Kushner was among the Trump campaign officials who was present at the infamous Trump Tower meeting of June 9, 2016, which was also attended by Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya (Trump’s campaign had been promised some dirt on Democrat Hillary Clinton by people in the Russian government). Journalist Jonathan Swan, during an interview with the White House senior adviser three years later for “Axios on HBO,” brought up that meeting — and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law was unsure whether or not he would notify the FBI if the same thing happened again.

Swan noted that three years ago, Kushner received an e-mail explaining that people in the Russian government wanted to help the Trump campaign. “Why didn’t you pick up the phone and call the FBI?,” Swan asked.

Kushner became testy, responding, “Jonathan, we’re in a place now where people are playing Monday morning quarterback, and they’re being so self-righteous. Let me put you in my shoes at that time. I’m running three companies, I’m helping run the campaign.”

View the complete June 3 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Former acting FBI chief Andrew McCabe: Trump’s ties to Russian mobsters are ‘absolutely unprecedented’

“Trump, Inc.” and Former FBI Deputy Chief Andrew McCabe Compare Notes

Before he became infamous for working on the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Trump Russia investigation, former acting FBI chief Andrew McCabe investigated the Russian mob in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. McCabe has been asking some of the questions we at “Trump, Inc.” have asked ourselves about Trump’s business. So today, we compare notes.

In this conversation with Andrea Bernstein and Heather Vogell, of “Trump, Inc.,” McCabe talks about why it makes sense that some of the people he investigated in the 1990s have resurfaced in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, what questions he still has after the Mueller report and why he and former FBI director Jim Comey have said Trump’s management style reminds them of the mob.

Trump has long denied any wrongdoing, and he has said he was simply acting as an ordinary businessman in his Russia dealings.

View the following May 29 article from ProPubica on the AlterNet website here.

This one act by Giuliani and his friends in the FBI could have been responsible for Trump’s win

How Rudy Giuliani engineered the infamous “Comey letter” of October 2016, and what Trump wants from him now.

A few years ago I wrote here in Salon about a phrase I call “Cokie’s Law,” referring to a comment by journalist Cokie Roberts during the Lewinsky scandal. There was a silly kerfuffle over Hillary Clinton allegedly claiming that her husband’s philandering was a result of his rough childhood. Roberts said,

“At this point it doesn’t much matter whether she said it or not because it’s become part of the culture. I was at the beauty parlor yesterday and this was all anyone was talking about.”

This comment says a lot about how the media sees its role as the arbiter of truth, but it’s also illustrative of how political operatives manipulate the press to their advantage. Take, for example, this passing comment about Rudy Giuliani’s latest antics in Politico:

View the complete May 29 article by Heather Bigby Parton from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

Report: Steve Bannon Urged FBI Officials in 2017 to Put ‘Differences’ with Trump Behind Them

President Trump’s decision to ask then-FBI Director James Comey to pledge loyalty to his presidency was one of the primary reasons special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed.

But it turns out, Trump wasn’t the only White House official to engage with the FBI as it investigated Russia’s role in the presidential election.

A day after Trump asked for Comey’s loyalty in April 2017, then-White House strategist Steve Bannon asked two top FBI officials to put their “differences” with Trump’s administration behind them, according to The Guardian, which cited “people familiar with the matter.”

View the complete May 14 article by Steve Neavling on the ticklethewire.com website here.