A former top FBI official on Thursday proposed that a “bipartisan commission” be created to vet presidential candidates so people like President Trump can never be elected again.
“We got this wrong, and this can’t happen again,” said Frank Figliuzzi, who was briefly the assistant director of the FBI under President Obama.
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U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) appeared on Fox Business’ Morning with Maria on Thursday and asked how former FBI director Jim Comey and others could have been so oblivious about details on Crossfire Hurricane.
Crossfire Hurricane refers to the FBI investigation of alleged collusion between President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign with Russia.
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Fired FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday testified that he is “proud” of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane (CH) investigation, the manifestly corrupt deep state operation that targeted the Trump campaign in 2016.
Comey appeared remotely before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions about his role in the anti-Trump operation, which included the FBI’s use of fraudulent applications to obtain surveillance warrants against former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.
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The Justice Department attorney who signed the four surveillance warrant applications against Carter Page says they would not have done had they known of the information withheld by the FBI, according to a letter sent to the Senate this month.
Sen. Lindsey Graham read portions of the letter at the beginning of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with former FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday.
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U.S. intelligence officials submitted an investigative referral to the FBI in September 2016 regarding an alleged plan by Hillary Clinton to link Donald Trump to Russia’s election interference efforts, according to John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence.
Ratcliffe noted in the letter, which he sent to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, that U.S. intelligence is not certain whether the allegation underlying the referral was based on fabrications from Russian intelligence agencies.
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The FBI’s lead agent on its investigation of Michael Flynn told prosecutors that a confidential source’s allegation about an incident involving the former national security adviser in 2014 was likely false, according to a government document.
Special Agent William Barnett said in an interview with a federal prosecutor on Sept. 17 that the Crossfire Hurricane team obtained the information about Flynn from a confidential human source (CHS) who provided information regarding Carter Page.
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Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham provided a slew of updates about the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation into Crossfire Hurricane on Sunday and teased “damning” revelations that he said will soon be made public.
“There’s a day of reckoning,” Graham said in an interview on Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures.”
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The FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation on the primary source for dossier author Christopher Steele, and considered obtaining a warrant to wiretap him in 2010, according to a document released Thursday.
The FBI was also aware of the information about the source, identified elsewhere as Igor Danchenko, by December 2016, according to the document.
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An FBI special agent who worked on Crossfire Hurricane told prosecutors last week that he saw little reason to investigate Michael Flynn and that he believed that members of the special counsel’s team prosecuted the former national security adviser in order to “get Trump,” according to a memo released late Thursday.
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Another school district has been hit by pornography being displayed in Zoom classes. On Friday, Williamsburg-James City County Schools(WJCCS) had two incidents in high school classes.
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The Charlottesville U.S. Attorney’s office dropped all charges of trade secret theft and computer intrusion against visiting Chinese scientist Haizhou Hu. The prosecution determined that some of the trade secrets were within Hu’s authorized access while at University of Virginia (UVA).
Hu has ties to the Chinese military. The researcher works for the Chinese Key Laboratory for Fluid Dynamics at China’s Beihang University, which the Chinese government and military both fund.
by John Solomon A year-long Senate investigation concluded Wednesday that Hunter Biden’s efforts to cash in on foreign business deals during his father’s vice presidency raised alarm among U.S. government officials, who perceived an ethical conflict of interest and flagged concerns about possible criminal activity ranging from bribery to…
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A year ago this month, Democrats began their impeachment crusade against President Trump because he had sought an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine. And the rallying cry then was that any concerns about the Bidens were pure, discredited conspiracy theories.
What a difference a year makes.
The GOP-led Senate Finance and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees plan to release a joint report as early as this week disclosing the results of a year-long probe into Joe Biden’s stewardship of Ukraine anti-corruption policy while his son earned big money as a board member at the corruption-plagued Burisma Holdings gas firm.
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Former FBI official Peter Strzok defended the bureau’s surveillance of former Trump aide Carter Page in an interview aired Sunday, attributing failures found in a government watchdog report to agents being “overworked.”
“I don’t think at all that it’s anything improper. You get people who are overworked, who make mistakes — and don’t get me wrong, inexcusable mistakes,” Strzok said in an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning.”
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John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, has been coordinating with U.S. Attorney John Durham and plans to soon declassify more documents related to the Trump-Russia probe, he said Sunday.
“The question now is did the FBI have a proper predicate to begin a counterintelligence investigation at all, and that’s the issue that John Durham is looking at, and also the issue that I’m continuing to look at,” Ratcliffe said in an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
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Texas A&M professor and NASA researcher Zhengdong Cheng was arrested Sunday for alleged conspiracy, false statements, and wire fraud.
According to a United States Department of Justice press release, Cheng allegedly “willfully took steps to obscure his affiliations and collaboration with a Chinese University and at least one Chinese-owned company.”
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Former FBI Director James Comey said Sunday that he has not had contact with the federal prosecutor investigating the bureau’s probe of the Trump campaign, but that he “can’t imagine” that he’s a target of a criminal inquiry.
“Given that I know what happened during 2016, which was a bunch of people trying to do the right thing consistent with the law, I’m not worried at all about that investigation of the investigation,” Comey said in an interview Sunday on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”
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by Chuck Ross FBI agents in 2015 sought authorization to surveil foreign government operatives who sought to influence Hillary Clinton, but ultimately settled for a defensive briefing given to lawyers for the Democratic presidential candidate, according to documents released on Sunday. One FBI agent involved in the investigation asked…
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A former FBI attorney will plead guilty to making false statements in documents used to obtain a surveillance warrant against former Trump aide Carter Page, his lawyer told the Associated Press Friday.
The guilty plea from Kevin Clinesmith is the first legal action taken in an investigation led by John Durham, a U.S. attorney looking into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe and other intelligence-gathering activities related to the Trump campaign.
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The FBI is investigating the shooting of a military helicopter during a training mission this week in northern Virginia, injuring one crew member who was aboard, officials said Wednesday.
The Air Force helicopter was flying over Middleburg on Monday when it was shot from the ground nearby, according to authorities. The helicopter made an emergency landing at the Manassas Regional Airport, and federal agents were called to the scene to investigate, the FBI said in a statement.
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Sen. Lindsey Graham on Sunday released an FBI memo from 2018 that he says shows investigators lied to the Senate about statements that the primary source for the Steele dossier told the FBI regarding the salacious document.
“This document clearly shows that the FBI was continuing to mislead regarding the reliability of the Steele dossier,” Graham said in a statement announcing the release of an eight-page briefing document that the FBI provided to the Senate Intelligence Committee in February 2018.
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Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four others were arrested Tuesday in a $60 million federal bribery probe, a person briefed on the investigation confirmed.
U.S. Attorney David DeVillers’ office would not discuss details of the case, which it planned to outline at a briefing later Tuesday.
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Investigators are examining a possible connection between the shooting and the body of a man found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in Sullivan County, New York, a law enforcement official said.
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An FBI document released Friday details at least 14 inaccuracies in a New York Times report from early 2017 that leveled shocking allegations of Trump associates’ contacts with Russian intelligence officers.
The document shows then-FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok’s comments on a Feb. 14, 2017 article entitled “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence.”
Read MoreOne suspected MS-13 member has been charged with terrorism, another faces the death penalty and other reported gang leaders face charges of kidnapping, murder and racketeering, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
The investigation and indictments targeted leaders of the MS-13, and represent the first time a member of the organization has been charged with terrorism, according to a DOJ press release.
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The FBI ran nearly 8 million background checks for gun purchases from March to June, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Background checks for firearm purchases in June reached 7.8 million, up 136% from last year. Checks for civilians pursuing a license to carry were the highest recorded in the last 20 years, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the WSJ reported.
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Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday he will approve Democrats’ request to invite Robert Mueller to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee after the former special counsel published an op-ed in The Washington Post criticizing President Donald Trump’s decision to commute the prison sentence for Roger Stone.
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The Justice Department this week provided Michael Flynn’s lawyers with a long-rumored government memo which shows that FBI officials did not believe that the former national security adviser intentionally lied in a White House interview at the center of his legal battle.
The memo, dated Jan. 30, 2017, and published Friday, also said that FBI investigators did not believe that Flynn was working as an agent of Russia.
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The alleged “ringleader” in a recent attempt to destroy the Andrew Jackson statue in Washington DC was arrested Thursday, and charged with destruction of federal property.
Jason Charter, a known antifa agitator, was arrested at his home by the FBI and U.S. Park Police as part of a joint task force, Fox News reported.
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British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested Thursday on charges she helped lure at least three girls — one as young as 14 — to be sexually abused by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of victimizing dozens of girls and women over many years.
According to the indictment, Maxwell, who lived for years with Epstein and was his frequent companion on trips around the world, facilitated his crimes and on some occasions joined him in sexually abusing the girls.
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A newly released hand-written note by former FBI agent Peter Strzok from early Jan. 2017 confirms knowledge and direction of the investigation of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn by former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden.
The note was submitted as evidence by Flynn’s lawyers Jesse Binnall and Sidney Powell on June 24 just as the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a rare writ of mandamus ordering Judge Emmet Sullivan to dismiss the case against Flynn.
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The FBI is refusing to release documents related to the primary source for dossier author Christopher Steele, saying in response to a public records request that the information is classified and risks identifying a confidential FBI source.
The source, whose identity remains a mystery, holds key information that could shed light on apparent inaccuracies in Steele’s dossier, which the FBI cited extensively in applications for surveillance orders against Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
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FBI officials left key details about former British spy Christopher Steele and his infamous dossier out of a newly declassified Intelligence Community Assessment regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The two-page document, which Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe declassified this week, describes Steele’s allegations about possible links between the Trump campaign and Russian government. It says that an FBI source — Steele — had provided information thought to be credible regarding Russia’s goals in meddling in the election.
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There must be someplace warm and inviting that needs an ambassador where FBI Director Christopher Wray can be sent to lounge around without getting in the way of the Nation’s important business.
We urge this action because it has becoming increasingly clear that Director Wray has no stomach for the hard work necessary to focus the FBI on the important work at hand, namely crushing the terrorist organizations now destroying American cities and cleaning up the mess Obama and Comey left in the wake of the set up of LTG Mike Flynn the spying on President Trump and his campaign.
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A federal judge on Monday defended his decision not to quickly approve the Justice Department’s request to dismiss its own criminal case against former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn, saying that the department’s reversal was unusual and he wanted to consider the request carefully before ruling on it.
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The FBI lawyer who signed a surveillance order against former Trump aide Carter Page that the Justice Department has deemed invalid submitted his resignation on Friday, the FBI said.
Dana Boente, the FBI general counsel, has recently come under scrutiny over his role in the various investigations against former Trump advisers, including Michael Flynn and Carter Page.
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The Cambridge University academic portrayed in the mainstream media as retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn’s Russian mistress and spy recruiter told the Star Newspapers about her ordeal—caught in the web of fake news and the Russian Collusion Hoax. “In April 2016, the Obama administration renewed General Flynn’s…
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A top prosecutor on the special counsel’s team will headline a fundraiser in June for former Vice President Joe Biden.
Andrew Weissmann, a former Justice Department official, will take part in a “fireside chat” for the Biden Victory Fund to be held online on June 2. The event will be moderated by Anne Milgram, the former attorney general for New Jersey.
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An FBI offer to pay former British spy Christopher Steele to collect intelligence on Michael Flynn in the weeks before the 2016 election has been one of the more overlooked revelations in a Justice Department inspector general’s report released in December.
The reference to the FBI proposal, which was made in an Oct. 3, 2016, meeting in an unidentified European city, has received virtually no press attention. But it might have new significance following the recent release of government documents that show that Steele peddled an unfounded rumor that Flynn had an extramarital affair with a Russian woman in the United Kingdom.
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Two Republican senators dramatically expanded their request for so-called Obama administration unmasking records on Tuesday, saying in a letter to the U.S. government’s top spy chief that they are “increasingly concerned” that surveillance of Trump campaign aides began earlier than the FBI has previously acknowledged.
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A newly declassified document confirms that the Obama administration was spying on Lt. General Michael Flynn even though the FBI had “no indication” that President Trump’s short-lived national security advisor had been colluding with Russia.
According to the document, disgraced former FBI director James Comey told then-President Obama that he had “no indication thus far that Flynn has passed classified information to Kislyak.”
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An American woman and her boyfriend were arrested and charged for allegedly collecting ransom money as part of their involvement in a deadly kidnapping conspiracy of U.S. residents in Tijuana, Mexico.
Leslie Briana Matla, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen who lived in Mexico, and her boyfriend, Juan Carlos Montoya Sanchez, a 25-year-old resident of Tijuana, were arrested by U.S. authorities pursuant to money-laundering conspiracy charges, according to an announcement from the Department of Justice (DOJ).
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A day after his cellphone was seized by federal agents as part of an FBI investigation into insider trading, North Carolina U.S. Sen. Richard Burr is leaving his position as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“Senator Burr contacted me this morning to inform me of his decision to step aside as Chairman of the Intelligence Committee during the pendency of the investigation,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said in a statement. “We agreed that this decision would be in the best interests of the committee and will be effective at the end of the day tomorrow.”
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Reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is once again up for consideration and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has an amendment to fix it — and is urging President Donald Trump to veto the renewal legislation if the Senate doesn’t adopt it.
What makes the Paul amendment unique — and why it must be adopted — as summarized by Lawfareblog.com is that it would “require that electronic surveillance, use of a pen register or trap-and-trace device, production of tangible things, or targeting of U.S. persons for information can be done only pursuant to a warrant issued by a non-FISA federal court and only under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.”
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by Chuck Ross Republican lawmakers who interviewed George Papadopoulos on Thursday came away from the hearing questioning the FBI’s basis for opening its collusion investigation based on information about the former Trump campaign aide. “What we’re finding without talking about specifics of what’s going on is that the whole…
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by Chuck Ross The FBI investigated former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe in March 2017 for an alleged unauthorized leak to the media regarding former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and President Donald Trump, according to documents released Monday. The alleged leak, which has not previously been reported, occurred in…
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by Gavin Hanson The FBI has asked Facebook not to reveal who may be behind a recent hack that exposed highly sensitive personal information of 14 million users, according to a Facebook security update Friday. A hack on Facebook, which originally was reported to have affected 50 million users,…
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by Hans von Spakovsky The new FBI report on Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh that was being reviewed by senators Thursday makes it clear that there is absolutely no reason to further delay the confirmation vote on his nomination. America would be well-served if the Senate seats this extraordinarily…
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by Chuck Ross North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows said Wednesday that there is a “strong suggestion” that undercover FBI sources secretly taped members of the Trump campaign. “Now whether that was a confidential human source taping an individual, that’s what I believe it is, but it’s important that we…
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by Robert Romano The Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 28 advanced to the Senate floor for a vote the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. But, retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) did so conditionally, saying he would only support Kavanaugh on the floor if the FBI is…
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