2 Anti-Trump FBI Officials Also Used Private Email, Their Texts Indicate

Two FBI officials who exchanged anti-Trump text messages on government equipment during the 2016 presidential campaign also conducted official business over private email accounts, according to a Senate report.

In one electronic text message on April 10, 2016, FBI official Peter Strzok told agency lawyer Lisa Page: “Gmailed you two drafts of what I’m thinking of sending Bill, would appreciate your thoughts. Second (more recent) is updated so you can skip the first.”

Strzok expressed frustration about being “left out of the loop,” according to the report from a Senate committee. It is not clear who “Bill” is.

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal analyst at The Heritage Foundation and a former Justice Department official, told The Daily Signal that use of private email makes it possible for federal employees to evade information requests.

“If an employee is using a personal email to discuss official business, then he is avoiding complying with the Federal Records Act and he is avoiding the Freedom of Information Act,” von Spakovsky said.

“I know that when I was at DOJ, we were told not to discuss any official business in private emails for these reasons, and because much of what we discussed was confidential and should not be disclosed. Private emails are notoriously less secure,” he said.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who heads the Justice Department, has said that Page and Strzok, chief of the FBI’s counterespionage section when he investigated the Hillary Clinton email scandal, exchanged more than 50,000 text messages while reportedly having an extramarital affair.

The two FBI officials expressed anti-Trump and pro-Clinton sentiments while texting each other. Special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, removed Strzok from the probe when the texts surfaced.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released copies of Page-Strzok text messages that his committee received from the Justice Department.

Johnson also asked the Justice Department to turn over additional information about FBI communications by Wednesday, which is both Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday. By publication deadline, his committee staff had not responded to inquiries on whether the department had done so.

The Daily Signal asked the Justice Department for a response to the evidence that Strzok and Page used private email accounts while transacting official FBI business, what policy is on such use, and also whether the department would meet Johnson’s Feb. 14 deadline.

“We have been working with the committee to respond to their request within a reasonable timeframe,” Ian D. Prior, the agency’s principal deputy director of public affairs, said in an email response.

Prior did not address the other issues.

The Justice Department’s Ethics Handbook for On and Off-Duty Conduct tells employees:

You may not use your DOJ contact information including email address for non-official matters except as emergency contact information and for persons such as close family and friends, children’s school, and in similar limited circumstances, where it is clear your communication is not on behalf of the department and you are not attempting to exert official influence.

It is not clear from the handbook what the FBI policy is on use of private email accounts for official business.

In a Jan. 31 letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Johnson inquires about an April 10, 2016, chain of text messages between Strzok and Page suggesting the two agents used Gmail to correspond while engaged in official FBI duties. (Sessions recused himself from matters related to the Russia probe.)

“According to text messages produced to the committee, Ms. Page and Mr. Strzok make references to communicating with other FBI employees via text message, phone call, email, and voicemail,” Johnson writes. “Additional text messages suggest that the FBI officials used non-official email accounts and messaging programs to communicate about official business.”

Johnson has asked Justice to turn over text messages exchanged between Strzok and Page between Dec. 14, 2016, and May 17, 2017. Those texts were said to be “missing,” but since have been recovered through the efforts of the agency’s inspector general.

Some of the Page-Strzok text messages already public “hint at broader record-retention issues with the FBI’s Samsung mobile devices and that FBI employees sought to procure iPhones for their use,” Johnson tells Rosenstein in the Jan. 31 letter.

Johnson’s committee published a report, “The Clinton Email Scandal and the FBI Investigation of It,” highlighting findings in the Page-Strzok text messages.

“Text messages exchanged between Strzok and Page suggest that FBI officials used non-official email accounts and messaging programs to communicate about FBI business,” the report says, going on to cite the April 10, 2016, text in which Strzok says he “gmailed” drafts to Page.

On Oct. 25, 2016, Page texts Strzok about a letter to Congress regarding the Clinton email investigation, which had resulted in no charges related to Clinton’s use of a private email server to conduct official business when she was secretary of state from 2009 through 2012. The election followed days later, on Nov. 8.

Page: “Remind me I need to ask you something. Tomorrow is fine.”

Strzok: “sure. You can also imsg [iMessage] me.”

Strzok and Page also discussed the possibility that Page would receive an FBI-issued iPhone, for which the FBI information technology office proposed to stop following “security/monitoring” requirements.

These texts raise questions about the FBI’s retention of records associated with its investigation, committee staff say.

Johnson also asked Rosenstein to produce:

all documents and communications, including but not limited to emails, memorandum notes, text messages, iPhone instant messages, and voicemails, for the period January 1, 2016 to the present referring or relating to the FBI’s Midyear Exam investigation, the presence of classified information on Secretary of State Clinton’s private email server, or candidates for the 2016 presidential election …

The committee chairman’s request for information is attached to correspondence involving 16 FBI officials, including Strzok, Page, former FBI Director James Comey, and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

Trump fired Comey in May. FBI Director Christopher Wray removed McCabe from his post Jan. 29, after a declassified memo from a House committee underlined a reference to him in a Page-Strzok text.

Ken McIntyre contributed to this report.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Kevin Mooney

Kevin Mooney

Kevin Mooney is an investigative reporter for The Daily Signal. Send an email to Kevin. Twitter: @KevinMooneyDC.

RELATED ARTICLES:

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A Note for our Readers:

Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.

Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.

Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.

Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.

The Daily Signal’s mission is to give Americans the real, unvarnished truth about what is happening in Washington and what must be done to save our country.

Our dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts rely on the financial support of patriots like you.

Your donation helps us fight for access to our nation’s leaders and report the facts.

You deserve the truth about what’s going on in Washington.

Please make a gift to support The Daily Signal.

SUPPORT THE DAILY SIGNAL

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., asking tough questions of the Justice Department, makes a point Feb. 7 during a Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee roundtable in the Dirksen Building on Capitol Hill. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom)

Prayer Shirts Get under the Collar of Secularists

Most Americans have probably never heard of Beloit, Ohio. But this month, they’re starting to hear from them. It may a small town (less than 1,000 people at most), but it’s mighty. And in the face of the bullies at the Freedom from Religious Foundation (FFRF), that’s all that matters.

As usual, the anti-Christian activists are always on the prowl for rural areas, where they think locals can be easily intimidated on issues of faith. But the atheists at FFRF made a mistake when it picked on Beloit. As usual, the Wisconsin group is terrified of the prayers of a few believers, so it fired off a letter to the superintendent of West Branch ordering the school to stop praying before sporting events — or else. School officials were upset at the thought of ending a tradition that had gone on for years, but they agreed, admitting they couldn’t afford a lawsuit.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. The community has started rallying to the side of the students, who are fighting back by selling more than 4,000 “Prayer Matters” shirts (in a town of 900 people)! “They don’t know us, have never attended a West Branch sporting event, or even stepped foot in our community,” one mom said. “Yet they believe they can tell us to stop [praying]. That just doesn’t seem right.

At Friday’s home basketball game, fans everywhere could be seen wearing the message that atheists so desperately wants to silence. “Everybody’s really coming together in support of the prayer issue,” local pastor John Ryser told Fox News’s Caleb Parke. “[Now], we’re having more conversations about prayer and about the gospel, the Good News about Jesus Christ, than we’ve ever had before.” As for the prayers, students took over, asking fans to have a moment of silence after the National Anthem.

What activists meant for evil, God meant for good. As we speak, our friends at First Liberty Institute are on the ground, investigating. If there’s a way to restore the religious freedom of these students, their attorneys will find it. For now, we’re cheering on the hundreds of families across that small, northeast town who know that no earthly power can stop God’s people — not from taking a stand and certainly not from praying!


Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.


RELATED ARTICLES:

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Watchdog Seeks Details on 2 FBI Officials Who Reviled Trump in Texts

A legal watchdog is pressing the Justice Department in court for documents that could allow Americans to decide for themselves whether politically motivated FBI officials compromised the bureau’s investigations of Hillary Clinton’s email habits and Russian election meddling.

Judicial Watch, a conservative but nonpartisan foundation based in Washington, filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit Jan. 24 against the Justice Department, seeking electronic text messages between two FBI officials in which they expressed hostility toward Donald Trump and enthusiasm for Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The next day, Fox News reported that the department’s inspector general had used “forensic tools” to recover hundreds of text messages between the FBI officials that had gone missing.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who heads the Justice Department, has said that Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer, and Peter Strzok, then chief of the FBI’s counterespionage section while investigating the Clinton email scandal, exchanged more than 50,000 text messages when they reportedly were having an extramarital affair.

Judicial Watch filed suit after the Justice Department, which includes the FBI, declined to respond to its Dec. 4, 2017, request under the Freedom of Information Act asking for all records of communications, including emails, text messages, and instant chats, between Strzok and Page from Feb. 1, 2015, to the present.

Judicial Watch also seeks all of Strzok’s and Page’s travel requests, travel authorizations, travel vouchers, and expense reports over the same three-year period.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has released copies of Page-Strzok text messages that the Justice Department turned over in response to requests from both Johnson and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Johnson’s committee received a “first tranche” of the Page-Strzok text messages Dec. 12 and a “second tranche” Jan. 19, staff members explain in a just-published report, “The Clinton Email Scandal and the FBI Investigation of It.”

The report points out that the second batch came with a notice that text messages between the two FBI officials “sent and received between Dec.14, 2016, and May 17, 2017, had not been preserved due to technical problems.” Now that Inspector General Michael Horowitz has recovered the missing text messages, however, Johnson’s committee is “working to obtain those message as soon as possible.”

The dates of the Page-Strzok text messages originate Aug. 21, 2015, just weeks after Trump announced his candidacy for president, and run through June 25, 2017, six months into Trump’s presidency, according to the records Johnson’s committee has published online.

Judicial Watch is working to obtain its own copies of released text messages, as well as the unreleased, previously “missing” ones.

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, has expressed skepticism that the texts actually were missing.

“The IRS told us that [IRS official] Lois Lerner’s emails were ‘missing,’ and we forced them to admit they existed and deliver them to us, Fitton said in a press release, adding:

The State Department hid the Clinton emails, but our FOIA lawsuits famously blew open that cover-up. We fully intend to get the ‘missing’ Strzok and Page documents. And it is shameful the FBI and DOJ have been playing shell games with these smoking gun text messages. Frankly, FBI Director [Christopher] Wray needs to stop the stonewalling.

Judicial Watch filed a separate lawsuit Feb. 2 against the Justice Department, asking for FBI documents related to the warrant application the FBI submitted Oct. 21, 2016, to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Obama administration officials successfully sought to surveil Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page as part of the investigation of allegations the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials. (Little more than two weeks later, Trump defeated Clinton in the election.)

Judicial Watch filed this second suit suit after the Justice Department rejected a Freedom of Information Act request made July 19, 2017.

The legal watchdog had asked for copies of “all proposed and all final signed FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] applications submitted to the FISC [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] relating to Russian interference in the 2016 election, allegations of collusion between people associated with the Trump campaign and Russia, and any known Trump associates regardless of context.”

The texts between Strzok and Page first came to light as the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General conducted an internal review of the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server to conduct official business as secretary of state from 2009 through 2012.

This five months of missing messages, between Dec. 4, 2016, and May 17, 2017, cover the transition from the Obama administration to the Trump administration, Trump’s inauguration Jan. 20, and nearly four full months of his presidency.

During this period, Trump fired national security adviser Michael Flynn and, in early May, FBI Director James Comey. His Justice Department also appointed Robert Mueller, himself a former FBI director, as special counsel to investigate allegations that Russia meddled in the 2016 election campaign and that Trump campaign associates colluded with Russian officials in such meddling.

As chief of the FBI’s counterespionage section, Strzok was in charge of the agency’s investigation of Clinton’s unauthorized use of a private email server, which resulted in Comey’s announcement July 5, 2016, that she would not be charged.

Strzok then became deputy assistant director of the counterintelligence section before joining Mueller’s team probing the allegations of Russian election interference and collusion with the Trump campaign.

Mueller removed Strzok from the team last July after learning of the text messages.

Page, the FBI lawyer, also served on Mueller’s investigative team, but she had returned to other duties by the time the inspector general probe uncovered her text messages with Strzok.

Because Strzok and Page were “key investigators in the Clinton email and Trump Russia collusion investigations,” Judicial Watch argues, their text messages containing “pro-Clinton” and “anti-Trump” statements are of public interest.

The watchdog notes that Strzok reportedly oversaw the FBI’s interviews of Flynn; changed Comey’s language describing Clinton’s email practices from “grossly negligent” to “extremely careless;” and played a lead role in the FBI’s interview of Clinton about those practices.

Also, it says, Strzok “is suspected of being responsible” for the Obama Justice Department’s use of unverified information about Trump’s Russian connections “to obtain a FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] warrant in order to spy on President Trump’s campaign.”

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Kevin Mooney

Kevin Mooney

Kevin Mooney is an investigative reporter for The Daily Signal. Send an email to Kevin. Twitter: @KevinMooneyDC.

RELATED ARTICLES:

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We Hear You: The State of the Union, the FBI, the Nunes Memo, and Faith at the Super Bowl

A Note for our Readers:

Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.

Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.

Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.

Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.

The Daily Signal’s mission is to give Americans the real, unvarnished truth about what is happening in Washington and what must be done to save our country.

Our dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts rely on the financial support of patriots like you.

Your donation helps us fight for access to our nation’s leaders and report the facts.

You deserve the truth about what’s going on in Washington.

Please make a gift to support The Daily Signal.

SUPPORT THE DAILY SIGNAL

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of President Donald Trump and FBI Director Christopher Wray sharing a stage during a graduation ceremony Dec. 15 at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Attorney General Jeff Sessions sat in the seat between the two men. (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters/Newscom)

The Insidious and Growing Global Attack on Freedom of Speech

The issue of freedom of speech was briefly in the headlines when Poland passed a law restricting the use of words associating it, as a nation and a people, with the Nazi Holocaust. The use of phrases like “Polish death camps” is now punishable under this new law. Members of the European Union do not have a First Amendment but they have two documents that address the rights of citizens to speak their minds.

According to Wikipedia these are:

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, provides, in Article 19, that:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

And the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), signed on 4 November 1950, guarantees a broad range of human rights to inhabitants of member countries of the Council of Europe, which includes almost all European nations. These rights include Article 10, which entitles all citizens to free expression. Echoing the language of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights this provides that:

Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

In 2012 Iowa State University published a list of countries without First Amendment rights. Iowa State University notes:

To Americans, the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment may seem to be a simple demand of a country’s citizens, but in many cases, it is a luxury that does not exist outside of America.

As Americans, we are fortunate enough to have laws, or in this case amendments, that grant us as citizens certain rights that are meant to be upheld by our government. One of the most important amendments is the first: the right to speech, press, religion, assembly, and petition. To Americans, this may seem to be a simple demand of a country’s people, however in many cases, it is a luxury that only Americans have.

The countries without a First Amendment listed in the Iowa State white paper are: Afghanistan, China, India, Great Britain and South Korea.

Mike Gonzalez in an article titled Europe’s War on Free Speech notes:

Any American who ever questions whether the First Amendment is vital to protect free speech should just cast a glance across the Atlantic. Europeans share the same values we do—indeed, our concept of rights derives from European philosophers—and yet they often adopt misguided laws that circumscribe freedom of expression.

[ … ]

Poland is but the latest European country to ban freedom of expression it finds uncomfortable. Many of these speech codes and laws have to do with the trauma of the Nazi legacy, but others extend far beyond.

In the United Kingdom, for example, the Public Order Act 1986 prohibits the “expressions of racial hatred, which is defined as hatred against a group of persons by reason of the group’s colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins.”

People have been fined and jailed both for expressing religious objections to the gay lifestyle or, at the other end, for displaying anti-religious bigotry.

In Germany, Holocaust denial is punishable by law. New hate speech rules, known locally as NetzDG and which came into full force last month, demand that social media giants promptly remove potentially illegal material, some of it within 24 hours of being notified, or face fines.

And France in 1990 passed a law that also made it a crime to deny the Holocaust.

Mr. Gonzalez quoted what U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said about Poland’s effort to limit freedom of speech. Secretary Tillerson stated:

The United States reaffirms that terms like ‘Polish death camps’ are painful and misleading. Such historical inaccuracies affect Poland, our strong ally, and must be combatted in ways that protect fundamental freedoms. We believe that open debate, scholarship, and education are the best means of countering misleading speech.

Secretary Tillerson’s comment can be applied to those who want to stifle freedom of speech in America.

Today Americans are witnessing the insidious global suppression of free speech. This suppression is based on concepts that were unheard of just a few years ago. Using words such as homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigot, misogynist, white privilege has caused colleges, universities, businesses, religious institutions, the media, governments and individuals to self-censor their speech. Those speaking out about social issues, Islam and government overreach have become criminals in countries such as Canada, France, Germany and Great Britain.

In the United States the military wing of the anti-free speech movement is Antifa.

Hashtag social media campaigns like #BlackLivesMatter has created a racial divide in America, #OccupyWallStreet has fomented class warfare and the #MeToo movement has chilled speech between men and women. #Resist has become the movement embraced by members of Antifa to stifle free speech, especially on college campuses like the University of California – Berkeley. Some even fear using gender specific words, like mankind, so as not to offend the gender confused. Absurd you say?

As Ayn Rand wrote:

The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.

President Trump is doing what he can to contest the uncontested absurdities of yesterday. But he is facing strong head winds from what has become known as “the swamp.” For you see the first right in the First Amendment is that Congress shall “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” President Trump is restoring the free exercise of religious liberty in via the Executive Branch of our government.

Without Judeo/Christian religious liberty there is no freedom of speech.

The more our Judeo/Christian values are rejected the more freedom of speech is restricted and outlawed. It is a slope we have been sliding down and its time to climb back up the mountain to regain our fundamental belief that “In God We Trust.”

RELATED ARTICLE: The 10 worst colleges for free speech: 2018

EDITORS NOTE: Congressman Vern Buchanan (R-FL District 16) in an email titled “George Orwell is Laughing” wrote:

Huckleberry Finn survived countless dangers in Mark Twain’s classic novel, but he couldn’t beat the PC police in Minnesota.

A school district there has removed The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill A Mockingbird from its reading list because the books “contain oppressive language” and “humiliated and marginalized students.”

Safe spaces, micro-aggression, trigger warnings…….where does the political correctness end?

Another famous novelist, George Orwell, would be laughing if he were alive to witness this absurdity. Orwell of course coined the term “thought police” in his classic book Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Consider these other “Orwellian” examples of political correctness:

The Washington State Corrections Department now refers to inmates as “students”, which means the infamous Green River Killer, Gary Ridgeway – the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history – is a student at Walla Walla’s Washington State Penitentiary.

University of California students voted to ban the American flag from hanging in its main lobby because flags are “symbols of patriotism or weapons for nationalism.”

One of Mark Twain’s quips would seem to apply to those who advocate this nonsense: “Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”

What do you think?

Vern

VIDEO: How Social Media Monopolies Silence Conservatives, How Anti-Trust Laws Could Help

The Social Media Neutrality Panel was held on February 6th, 2018 at the Newseum in Washington D.C.

Rightside Broadcasting Network reported:

On Tuesday, February 6, 2018, at 1:00 pm (ET) at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. thought leaders and prominent voices in alternative media will gather for a panel discussion on social media neutrality and the fight for diversity of voices online. The event will feature several prominent online conservative and moderate voices who have been impacted by social media bias, shadow banning and other methods meant to silence voices and limit readers and viewers access to information. Panelists will discuss political bias by Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and by search engines such as Google.

A Harvard University study published on August 16, 2017, analyzed both mainstream and social media coverage of the 2016 election cycle. The study clearly shows that modern conservatives in America today have wholeheartedly rejected the liberal mainstream media.

The 2016 election cycle was the first election cycle where conservatives used alternative media news sources to gather information rather than turning to traditional mainstream outlets.

Conservative Americans abandoned the mainstream media in 2016 and will not be returning anytime soon. This paradigm shift forced left-wing tech-giants to take action. Tech giants today understand they have the ability to influence what information consumers see through their complex, and non-public, algorithms. Often this power is abused. Several conservative outlets, and countless individuals have been targeted, shadow-banned, and silenced by these tech giants.

By silencing these voices, big-tech is limiting information available to the American public and is a direct assault on First Amendment rights. The time for transparency is now! Tuesday’s panelists include Jim Hoft of The Gateway Pundit, Pamela Geller of The Geller Report, Margaret Howell of Right Side Broadcasting, Oleg Atbashian from The People’s Cube, Tech entrepreneur Marlene Jaeckel and special video remarks by Michelle Malkin and James O’Keefe.

The panel included testimony from Jim Hoft of The Gateway PunditPamela Geller of The Geller ReportMargaret Howell of Rightside Broadcasting NetworkOleg Atbashian from The People’s Cube, tech entrepreneur Marlene Jaeckel. Topics all involved the current tech climate, social media bias, shadow banning and other methods meant to silence voices and limit readers and viewers access to information.

Watch the full panel discussion:

EDITORS NOTE: Pamela Geller Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of The Geller Report and author of the bestselling book, FATWA: Hunted in America, as well as The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. She is also a regular columnist for numerous publications. Geller’s activism on behalf of human rights has won international notice. She is a foremost defender of the freedom of speech. Her First Amendment lawsuits filed nationwide have rolled back attempts to limit Americans’ free speech rights and limit speech to only one political perspective, and exposed attempts to make an end-run around the First Amendment by illegitimately restricting access to public fora.

In Geller’s statements, she discusses how major social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube have created the “new town square”, which they now have a monopoly on, and are using their platforms to erase and hide any viewpoint or person that does not conform to their pushed “progressive” values. Geller tells the audience how Google’s advertising platform went from being 70% of revenue from the Geller Report to them blacklisting her from the platform simply based on her conservatives views. She outlines how they do not just target voices they disagree with, but they make sure that those voices are unable to sustain themselves: “If they kill your ability to make a living, it’s a form of murder.”

Watch Geller’s entire statement below:

The Plot Thickens: Grassley-Graham Letter Sheds New Light on Steele Dossier, Nunes Memo

While politicians, pundits, and the people continue to react to (and spin) the contents of the Nunes memo that was released last Friday, and await the release of the Democrats’ rebuttal, a new document has been released that contains tidbits of illuminating information.

On Jan. 4, Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on crime and terrorism, submitted a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Chris Wray requesting that they consider investigating Christopher Steele for lying to the FBI, which is a federal crime.

Steele is the former British spy who was hired and paid $160,000 by Fusion GPS, a research company working on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to do opposition research on Donald Trump. Steele is also the individual who produced a dossier that was used to support an application for a warrant to engage in electronic surveillance of Carter Page, a suspected foreign agent (wittingly or unwittingly) of the Russian government who was also working as an unpaid foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign.

And it is Steele’s credibility, as well as allegations of political bias at senior levels of the FBI, that are the center of this dispute.

Grassley-Graham Memo Informs Our Understanding of Nunes Memo

Attached to that referral letter was an eight-page classified memorandum (“Grassley/Graham memo”) setting forth the basis for the referral. Wray, very much to his credit, has declassified much (but not all) of the information in that memorandum, which has now been released.

The initial application (which was subsequently renewed three times) was filed on October 21, 2016, pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and was signed by a judge on the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

As I wrote in a previous article, Former FBI Director James Comey has testified that the information in the Steele dossier was “unverified” at the time the initial FISA application was submitted, and, according to the Nunes memo, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe testified before the House intelligence committee that “no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] with the Steele dossier information,” suggesting the FBI did not believe probable cause existed based on the information it gathered on its own.

Several Democrats have charged that the Nunes memo mischaracterized McCabe’s testimony and have implied that there was more than enough information in the FISA application to support issuing the warrant without information from the Steele dossier.

In their referral memorandum, Grassley and Graham, who have reviewed all four FISA applications in their entirety, “as well as numerous other FBI documents relating to Steele,” make statements which, assuming they are true, tend to support what is contained in the Nunes memo.

Specifically, the Grassley/Graham memo states that the Steele dossier “formed a significant portion of the FBI’s warrant application,” that the application “relied more heavily on Steele’s credibility than on any independent verification or corroboration for his claims,” and that the basis for the warrant “rests largely” on Steele’s credibility.

The Steele dossier contains explosive allegations that the Russian government, acting under orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin, was carrying out an operation to tilt the election in Trump’s favor and that the Russian government had compromising information of a financial and sexual nature against Trump that could be used to blackmail him at some point in the future.

Why the FBI Trusted Steele

The FBI, it seems, trusted Steele and relied on this information because of his background as a spy and because he had provided the bureau with reliable information on several occasions in the past.

According to the Grassley/Graham memo, the FBI stated in its initial FISA application that, “based on [Steele’s] previous reporting history with the FBI, whereby [Steele] provided reliable information to the FBI, the FBI believes [Steele’s] reporting to be credible.”

While that may have been so in the past, there was plenty of reason to distrust Steele in this case.

In addition to the fact that he was working on behalf of the DNC and Trump’s opponent in the presidential election, Steele detested Trump. A month before the government filed its first FISA application, Steele told Bruce Ohr, a senior Justice Department official whose wife worked for Fusion GPS, that he was “desperate” to see that Trump not win the election.

Moreover, the Steele dossier itself is replete with statement allegedly provided to Steele by various unnamed sources whom Steele claims are or were senior Russian officials or people who were close to them. In other words, the validity of the dossier depended not only on the credibility of the man preparing the dossier (whose credibility was subject to doubt in this case), but also his assessment of the credibility of other unidentified sources who were feeding him information.

Did Clinton Sources Contribute to Steele Dossier?

As disturbing as that is, another revelation in the Grassley/Graham memo is even more concerning.

The memo suggests that some of the information being fed to Steele and included in his dossier did not come from highly-placed Russian sources, but from people associated with the Clintons.

There has been some speculation that this individual may have been Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and employee of the Clinton Foundation and a long-time close confidant of Hillary Clinton.

As the memo states, “[i]t is troubling enough that the Clinton Campaign funded Mr. Steele’s work, but that these Clinton associates were contemporaneously feeding Mr. Steele allegations raises additional concerns about his credibility.”

Steele’s Relationship With FBI

The nature of the lies that Steele may have told the FBI are also significant.

Given the fact that the information in the Steele dossier was “unverified” and was central to the FISA application, the FBI was looking for some, any, information that might be deemed corroborative. According to the Grassley/Graham memo, at the time of the initial FISA application, Steele had told the FBI that he had not disclosed the contents of his dossier to anyone other than the bureau and Fusion GPS.

Roughly one month beforehand, Yahoo News, presumably doing its own investigative work, published an article that, as the FISA application stated, “generally match[ed] the information about [Carter] Page that [Steele] discovered doing [his] own research … .”

According to the Grassley/Graham memo, the FBI affirmatively stated in the FISA application that it did not believe Steele was the source of the information that appeared in the Yahoo News article, which attributed the source of its information to “a well-placed Western intelligence source … .”

If the Yahoo News source was indeed an independent source, this would be significant, but it wasn’t. Contrary to what he told the FBI, Steele had, in fact, provided information in his dossier to others. The source of the information in the Yahoo News article was Steele himself.

Steele, no doubt anxious to get his revelations into the public domain before the election, was leaking like a sieve. In addition to speaking to Yahoo News, Steele provided background briefings to CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and possibly other media outlets.

Shortly after the initial FISA warrant was obtained, Mother Jones published its own article in which Steele outed himself as an FBI confidential source, which prompted the FBI to formally terminate Steele’s designation as a trusted source.

Friends of Steele’s have stated that Steele was deeply troubled by what he learned during his investigation of Trump and that he felt like he was “sitting on a nuclear weapon.” Perhaps that was so.

But given the explosive nature of charges, the relationship of the target (Page) to the Trump campaign in the heat of a close election battle, the fact that Steele was paid by (and possibly given unsourced information by) the Clinton campaign, it was incumbent on the FBI to verify as much of this information as it could or, at the very least, to reveal to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court every bit of information it had that might cast doubt on Steele’s credibility.

In summary, the initial FISA application and, most likely, the renewal applications, relied extensively on the credibility of Steele. Yet in addition to the fact that it failed to disclose the full extent of Steele’s known or potential bias in the initial application, when the FBI learned that Steele had not been truthful during the process, it did not, it seems, tell that to the FISA court.

As Graham has stated: “You can be an FBI informant. You can be a political operative. But you can’t be both, particularly at the same time.”

All attorneys before a court have a duty of candor, which means they must disclose “all material facts known to the lawyer that will enable the tribunal to make an informed decision, whether or not the facts are adverse.” Would the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge have signed the warrant if this information had been disclosed? We will never know.

This is, of course, a developing story, and more information will likely be revealed once the memo from Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is disclosed, assuming that it is disclosed.

Speaking of the Schiff memo, some Democrats have expressed the fear that the president, who must approve the memo’s release, will make “political redactions” to the memo to prevent the disclosure of information that will be unfavorable to him.  And some Republican sources have expressed the fear that the Democrats may have intentionally included highly sensitive information in their memo so that, if redacted by Trump, it would enable them to argue that the president is hiding something.

Let’s hope neither of these is true.

It is, of course, vital that the president protect against the disclosure of sensitive “sources and methods” that could imperil the integrity of current or future national security investigations. That having been said, it is also important that the public get to the bottom of what happened here. As I have previously stated, this “matter should be thoroughly and dispassionately (to the extent that is possible in Washington, D.C.) investigated. The matter is too important to do otherwise.”

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of John G. Malcolm

John G. Malcolm oversees The Heritage Foundation’s work to increase understanding of the Constitution and the rule of law as director of the think tank’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Read his research. Twitter: .

RELATED ARTICLES:

7 Anti-Trump Politicians and Institutions Who Colluded with the Russians

Poll: Americans ‘Overwhelmingly’ Believe Obama ‘Improperly Surveilled’ Trump Campaign

A Note for our Readers:

Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.

Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.

Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.

Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.

The Daily Signal’s mission is to give Americans the real, unvarnished truth about what is happening in Washington and what must be done to save our country.

Our dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts rely on the financial support of patriots like you.

Your donation helps us fight for access to our nation’s leaders and report the facts.

You deserve the truth about what’s going on in Washington.

Please make a gift to support The Daily Signal.

SUPPORT THE DAILY SIGNAL

Obama’s Interest in FBI Case Cited in Text Messages 2 Months Before Election

Barack Obama figures prominently in the newly released chain of electronic text messages between an FBI counterintelligence official and a bureau attorney who both expressed antipathy toward Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.

In a Sept. 2, 2016, text message to Peter Strzok, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, FBI lawyer Lisa Page suggests that, as president, Obama was tracking the progress of one or more cases.

She was in the process of crafting talking points for then-FBI Director James Comey, Page texted Strzok, because “potus wants to know everything we’re doing.”

“POTUS” has become a widely used acronym for president of the United States.

The Republican majority on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee produced a report, “The Clinton Email Scandal and the FBI’s Investigation of It,” detailing major findings in the previously unseen text messages. The committee made them available for public consumption, Fox News first reported early Wednesday.

Trump tweeted late Wednesday morning:

Because the FBI officially wrapped up its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state without bringing charges in July 2016, it’s not clear to what “everything” Page was referring.

By Sept. 2, Trump and Clinton were locked in a bitter contest for the White House that ended with Trump’s victory Nov. 8 to succeed Obama. In late October, 11 days before the election, Comey did briefly reopen the FBI investigation over newly discovered Clinton emails.

As president, Obama had said in an April 2016 interview on “Fox News Sunday” that he could “guarantee” that his administration would not interfere with the FBI investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server to conduct  government business while secretary of state during Obama’s first term.

When Fox’s Chris Wallace, the show’s host, asked the president if he could guarantee that Clinton would not be afforded any special treatment, Obama said:

I do not talk to the attorney general about pending investigations. I do not talk to FBI directors about pending investigations. We have a strict line, and always have maintained it, previous president. …

I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI, not just in this case, but in any case.

The text messages between Strzok and Page, who reportedly were having an affair at the time, first came to light as the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General conducted an internal review of the FBI’s probe of the Clinton email scandal.

Comey, who would be fired by President Trump in May 2017, cleared Clinton of any criminal activity in a widely analyzed press conference four months before the election, on July 5, 2016.

The Justice Department produced a “first tranche” of the Strzok-Page text messages on Dec. 12 and Jan. 19 in response to a written request from Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.,  chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Their report says the text messages raise questions of whether:

  • Personal animus and/or political bias influenced an FBI investigation.
  • The Obama Justice Department or White House influenced an FBI investigation.
  • Personal animus and/or political bias influenced the FBI’s actions with respect to Trump and his campaign or transition officials.

“We should all recognize the harm done to our rule of law when crimes go unpunished because government officials look the other way for the wealthy, famous, or powerful,” the Senate report says, adding:

Americans rightly expect a single and impartial system of justice for all, not one for the well connected and a separate one for everyone else. The information available to the committee at this time raises serious questions about how the FBI applied the rule of law in its investigation of classified information on Secretary Clinton’s private email server.

The Sept. 2, 2016, text message from Page to Strzok that mentions Obama wanting “to know everything” is one of more than 50,000 texts the two FBI officials exchanged during a two-year extramarital affair, the Daily Mail reported.

The dates of the text messages range from August 2015 to December 2016, according to The Washington Times and other media outlets that obtained copies.

As The Daily Signal and other outlets previously reported, Page and Strzok exchanged derogatory messages about Trump in text messages that already have come to light, referring to him as an “idiot” during the Republican primary season.

In other exchanges, Page and Strzok made it clear that they supported Clinton in the Democrats’ primary contest over Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders addressed the “potus wants to know everything” text Wednesday during the daily press briefing.

“It just further shows that there is reason for all of us to have great cause for concern in this process, and we hope that it’s more thoroughly and fully looked at as we move forward,” Sanders said.

Asked whether she believes Obama was involved in an FBI investigation, she said:

I’m not aware of that specific concern, but I think that there is a lot within those text messages that gives us great cause for concern. And we, again, hope that they look at them thoroughly and investigate this process more fully.

Republican lawmakers noted that Strzok was lead investigator in the probe of Clinton’s secret email setup, and identified him as the FBI official who urged Comey to use the words “extremely careless” rather than the legally weighted “grossly negligent” to describe Clinton’s email practices as secretary of state.

Last July, special counsel Robert Mueller removed Strzok from his team investigating Russian interference in the election after learning of the text messages.

Page, the FBI lawyer, also served on Mueller’s investigative team, but by the time Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz’s probe uncovered her text messages with Strzok, she had returned to other duties at the FBI.

Fred Lucas and Ken McIntyre contributed to this report.

Portrait of Kevin Mooney

Kevin Mooney

Kevin Mooney is an investigative reporter for The Daily Signal. Send an email to Kevin. Twitter: @KevinMooneyDC.

A Note for our Readers:

Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.

Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.

Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.

Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.

The Daily Signal’s mission is to give Americans the real, unvarnished truth about what is happening in Washington and what must be done to save our country.

Our dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts rely on the financial support of patriots like you.

Your donation helps us fight for access to our nation’s leaders and report the facts.

You deserve the truth about what’s going on in Washington.

Please make a gift to support The Daily Signal.

SUPPORT THE DAILY SIGNAL

Released: 29 Pages of FBI Clinton-Lynch Tarmac Meeting Documents Previously Withheld by Justice Department

Judicial Watch has released 29 pages of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) documents related to the June 27, 2016, tarmac meeting between former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton. The documents show that FBI officials were more concerned about leaks than the actual meeting itself.  The new documents also show that then-FBI Director Comey seemed to learn of the meeting from news reports.

The new documents were obtained by Judicial Watch in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:16-cv-02046)) filed after the Justice Department failed to comply with a July 7, 2016, FOIA request seeking:

  • All FD-302 forms prepared pursuant to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server during her tenure.
  • All records of communications between any agent, employee, or representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding, concerning, or related to the aforementioned investigation. This request includes, but is not limited to, any related communications with any official, employee, or representative of the Department of Justice, the Executive Office of the President, the Democratic National Committee, and/or the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.
  • All records related to the meeting between Attorney General Lynch and former President Bill Clinton on June 27, 2016.

The new FBI documents show FBI officials were concerned about a leak that Bill Clinton delayed his aircraft taking off in order to “maneuver” a meeting with the attorney general.  The resulting story in the Observer is seemingly confirmed and causes a flurry of emails about the source of the article.  FBI official(s) write “we need to find that guy” and that the Phoenix FBI office was contacted “in an attempt to stem any further damage.”  Another FBI official, working on AG Lynch’s security detail, suggests instituting non-disclosure agreements.  The names of the emails authors are redacted. There are no documents showing concern about the meeting itself.

The FBI originally informed Judicial Watch they could not locate any records related to the tarmac meeting.  However, in a related FOIA lawsuit, the Justice Department located emails in which Justice Department officials communicated with the FBI and wrote that they had communicated with the FBI.  As a result, by letter dated August 10, 2017, from the FBI stated, “Upon further review, we subsequently determined potentially responsive documents may exist. As a result, your [FOIA] request has been reopened…”

On June 27, 2016, Attorney General Loretta Lynch met with former President Bill Clinton on board a parked plane at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona.  The meeting occurred during the then-ongoing investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s email server, and only a few days before she was interviewed the Justice Department and FBI.  (Judicial Watch filed a request on June 30 that the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General investigate that meeting.)

The tarmac meeting also came just days before former FBI Director James Comey held the July 5, 2016, press conference in which he announced that no charges would be filed against Mrs. Clinton. In his subsequent, May 3, 2017, testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey said the Lynch-Clinton tarmac meeting was the “capper” among “a number of things” that had caused him to determine that Department of Justice leadership “could not credibly complete the investigation and decline prosecution without grievous damage to the American people’s confidence in the justice system.”

“These new FBI documents show the FBI was more concerned about a whistleblower who told the truth about the infamous Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting than the scandalous meeting itself,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.  “The documents show the FBI worked to make sure no more details of the meeting would be revealed to the American people.  No wonder the FBI didn’t turn these documents over until Judicial Watch caught the agency red-handed hiding them.  These new documents confirm the urgent need to reopen the Clinton email scandal and criminally investigate the resulting Obama FBI/DOJ sham investigation.”

VIDEO: Adam Schiff recorded speaking to Russian comedians in April, 2016 who said they had dirt on Trump — April Fool?

This would be hilarious if it weren’t for who fell for this April Fool’s Day prank. None other than Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Committee on Intelligence.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA)

According to The Daily Mail:

The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee was the victim of a prank phone call by Russian comedians who offered to give him ‘compromising’ dirt on Donald Trump – including nude photos of the president and a Russian reality show star.

DailyMail.com can disclose that after the prank, his staff engaged in correspondence with what they thought was a Ukrainian politician to try to obtain the ‘classified’ material promised on the call.

On an audio recording of the prank call posted online, Adam Schiff can be heard discussing the committee’s Russia investigation and increasingly bizarre allegations about Trump with a man who claimed to be Andriy Parubiy, the chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament.

The call, made a year ago, was actually from two Russian comedians nicknamed ‘Vovan’ and ‘Lexus’ who have become notorious for their phony calls to high-ranking American officials and celebrities, including UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and Elton John.

Read more.

High points presented by The Daily Mail:

  • Adam Schiff, the ranking Democratic member of the House Intel Committee was recorded speaking to Russian pranksters who spun elaborate ‘kompromat’ tale
  • He told Vocan and Lexus, two radio pranksters who have also hit Nikki Haley, that he would pass their claims to the FBI in a call made last year
  • The duo posed as a fake Ukrainian politician to say Trump had sex with Russian glamour model Olga Buzova after a Miss Universe pageant in 2013
  • In the call they said Putin had been passed naked pictures of Trump and now-president had used secret codes for talks with Russians
  • Duo gave emails to DailyMail.com which showed Schiff’s staff trying to arrange to collect ‘classified’ documents from Ukraine’s embassy in D.C.
  • Schiff’s office claimed he was not fooled by the call and reported it to ‘authorities’ but did not explain why his staff kept up correspondence
  • Call posted in April 2017 surfaced as Schiff waits to see if Trump will declassify his Democratic version of the Devin Nunes memo which shamed the FBI

How Democrats Used the FBI to Spy on Two Men accused of Russian Collusion: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Donald J. Trump

George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

With the ongoing revelations that Americans were the targets of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) surveillance during the 2016 presidential primary process and after the presidential election, this quote deserves to be repeated. Why? Because this is the second case of an administration run by a President from the Democratic Party that has done this.

The first example happened 63 years ago when the FBI spied on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. At that time the President was John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert was the Attorney General.

According to the Stanford University website:

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began monitoring Martin Luther King, Jr., in December 1955, during his involvement with the Montgomery bus boycott, and engaged in covert operations against him throughout the 1960s. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was personally hostile toward King, believing that the civil rights leader was influenced by Communists. This animosity increased after April 1964, when King called the FBI ‘‘completely ineffectual in resolving the continued mayhem and brutality inflicted upon the Negro in the deep South’’ (King, 23 April 1964). Under the FBI’s domestic counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) King was subjected to various kinds of FBI surveillance that produced alleged evidence of extramarital affairs, though no evidence of Communist influence. [Emphasis added]

Fast forward to today. There are numerous reports of animosity and open hostility toward President Donald J. Trump by senior members of the FBI during the administration of former President Barack Obama. These senior members to date include: former FBI Director James Comey, former Chief of the Counterespionage Section Peter P. Strzok II, Strzok’s mistress former FBI senior council Lisa Page, former Deputy Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr and former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe.

The FBI spying on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Donald J. Trump, both Republicans and both critical of the FBI, was done for “political” reasons. Both cases involved “suspicion” of Russian collusion.

History has vindicated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr of any Russian collusion. The investigation against President Trump is ongoing.

The Permanent House Committee on Intelligence is conducting an ongoing investigation into the possible misuse and abuse of FISA warrants and the secret FISA court system. According to RedState.com:

Despite attempts by Democrats to almost immediately declare the House Intelligence Committee memo on possible abuse by the FBI and DOJ the work of Republicans who just wanted “to demolish the separation between politics and the fair administration of justice,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (primary author of the memo) has indicated the agency is not in the crosshairs — but roughly five agents definitely are.

The Permanent House Committee on Intelligence voted unanimously to release a second memo written by Rep. Adam Bennett Schiff (D-CA District 28) the committee’s minority chairman. This second memo, like the first, is going through the process of being reviewed to insure no intelligence procedures and sources are reveled. President Trump has five days to review and release it. There are already expectations that a third memo is being prepared for release.

The more memos released the more Americans will learn about how Americans can be swept up into a system of domestic spying, legally and illegally.

It is important that once this episode is over that we do not repeat it, ever again.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Declassified Memo Shows DOJ Worked to ‘Tip the Scales of Justice,’ Lawmaker Says

GOP Memo Raises Serious Questions About FBI, Justice Department

Democrats and FBI Abuses

House Committee Votes to Release Democrats’ Memo on FISA Application

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence voted unanimously Monday evening to release Democrats’ Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act memo to the public, sending the document to the president to decide whether he wants to approve its release.

Republicans voted to declassify the Democrats’ memo, which reportedly weakens allegations made in the memo crafted by the intelligence committee’s chairman, Devin Nunes. The committee’s unanimous vote sends the Democrats’ memo to the White House, giving President Donald Trump five days to decide if he wants to declassify and release it to the American public, Politico reported.

dcnf-logo

While Trump has the power to block the memo from being released, the White House said it would “entertain” the possibility of approving its release.

The four-page Nunes memo, put forth Friday, alleged the Department of Justice and FBI made “material and relevant” omissions in applying for a Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant. All Democrats on the House intelligence committee voted against releasing the Nunes memo.

EDITORS NOTE: Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities for this original content, email licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

VIDEO: How ‘fake’ political research was used by the FBI to spy on American citizens

Sean Hannity in his opening monologue on February 2nd, 2018 explained the FBI was weaponized to spy on Americans. The explosive memo released by the Permanent Committee on Intelligence disclosed the abuse of the FISA act to wrongly spy on Americans not just once but four times in just one case.  Jay Sekulow and others also discuss why the FBI and DOJ lied to the FISA Court.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

Trump Says FBI Leadership Politicized ‘Sacred Investigative Process’

5 Things You Need To Know About The Bombshell House Intelligence Memo.

House Memo States Disputed Dossier Was Key To FBI’s FISA Warrant To Surveil Members Of Team Trump

Judicial Watch Sues for Russia Collusion FISA Documents

The House memo released today [February 2nd, 2018] makes a compelling case that the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court was misled and severely abused by top officials in the Justice Department and FBI. Rather than relying upon dueling summary memos from Republicans and Democrats, the American people should be able to see for themselves the details of how the Obama administration officials (and Rod Rosenstein of the Trump administration) justified spying on the Trump team.

To that end we have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Justice Department for FBI documents regarding the FISA warrant application submitted to – and responses from – the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court related to alleged collusion between Russia and Trump campaign associates (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00245)).

We filed suit in the United States District Court of the District of Columbia after the agency rejected a July 19, 2017, FOIA request seeking:

Copies of all proposed and all final signed FISA applications submitted to the FISC relating to Russian interference in the 2016 election, allegations of collusion between people associated with the Trump campaign and Russia, and any known Trump associates regardless of context;

Copies of all FISC responses to the above-mentioned applications in which the Court notified the FBI or Justice Department that it would not grant the proposed applications or recommended changes. If any such FISC responses were provided orally, rather than in writing, please provide copies of FBI or Justice Department records memorializing or otherwise referencing the relevant FISC responses;

Copies of all FISC orders relating to the above mentioned applications, whether denying the applications and certifications, denying the orders, modifying the orders, granting the orders, or other types of orders.

Let’s be clear about what is at stake here. The memo shows that Comey, McCabe, Yates, and Rosenstein misled the FISA court. Will Rosenstein be fired? Will he have to recuse himself, in the least?

Moreover, and more significantly, the Steele dossier was a “salacious and unverified” document paid for by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee. Yet, it was used by top Justice Department officials to obtain a FISA warrant. In fact, there could have been no FISA warrant without the dossier. Which means there was no Russia collusion story without the dossier. Which means there could have been no Mueller special counsel without the Clinton-financed anti-Russia dossier.

From what we know publicly, this may be the worst government abuse scandal in a generation – which makes it urgent the Justice Department stop stonewalling the release of the FISA documents.

The Memo! Transparency at last!

The President of the United States has, under his Constitutional authority, released the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence memo on what the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation used as the basis to seek a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on American citizens.

The President noted that he awaits the memo from the Democratic members of the Select Committee after it goes through the same procedures.

We are withholding comment and ask the citizens read the memo and leave their comments on its contents.

370599093 FISA Memo Full Text by John Hinderaker on Scribd

RELATED ARTICLES: 

Podcast: What You Need to Know About Nunes Memo, Allegations of FBI Bias

The Nunes Memo and the Death of American Journalism

The Facts Currently Known About Nunes Memo, FBI Bias Accusations

Nunes memo raises question: Did FBI violate Woods Procedures? – The Hill

Trump Says FBI Leadership Politicized ‘Sacred Investigative Process’

5 Things You Need To Know About The Bombshell House Intelligence Memo.

House Memo States Disputed Dossier Was Key To FBI’s FISA Warrant To Surveil Members Of Team Trump

RELATED PODCAST: Memo Special Edition

RELATED VIDEOS:

The greatest scandal is U.S. history explained.

Rep. Devin Nunes speaks about the FISA memo.

This Critical Reauthorization Will Help Keep Americans Safe

The reauthorization earlier this month of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is a reaffirmation that America must continue to have the best possible tools at its disposal to counter dangerous adversaries and the evolving threats that we face in a volatile world.

Section 702 allows the government to target non-U.S. persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States in order to obtain foreign intelligence.

The most significant modification made to Section 702 pertains to one particular additional requirement for the FBI. That change requires that when the FBI wishes to query and potentially use Section 702 information in support of a criminal investigation, it must obtain a warrant on a case-by-case basis.

The lawful collection of communications under Section 702 of specifically identified individuals remains vital to countering the evolving threats from international terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and espionage against America’s vital interests.

The reauthorization of Section 702 for six years provides the men and women of the intelligence community a tool that has proven to be one of the most critical collection capabilities available in identifying and subsequently thwarting those threats.

A few years ago, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board reported publicly that more than a quarter of our international terrorism reporting was based in whole or in part on information collected under this authority.

The new extension of Section 702 without significant amendments was opposed by some legislators for fear that this FISA provision allows the government to collect data carte blanche on U.S. persons. They remain critical of the Section 702 program because of what they claim amounts to warrantless collection against U.S. persons.

Their concerns rest on the inevitable reality that in the course of collecting information about foreign targets, the Section 702 program will also collect information about Americans as an incidental matter.

This criticism is misguided and unfair.

Under Section 702, the attorney general and the director of national intelligence jointly authorize surveillance of people who are neither U.S. citizens nor permanent residents of the U.S.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court also plays a key oversight role. Under Section 702, it remains expressly prohibited to attempt collection of information from targets inside the U.S.—whether Americans or foreigners—or to deliberately target the collection of online communications of U.S. persons.

The law still requires the government to develop “targeting procedures”—the steps the government needs to take in order to ensure that the target is offshore at any time the electronic surveillance is undertaken.

What’s more, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court must approve these procedures. A cellphone number, for example, remains the same whether the phone is physically overseas or in the U.S., and the fact that someone has a U.S. cellphone number does not necessarily indicate whether the owner or user of that cellphone is a foreigner or an American.

Therefore, there is no change in the targeting process. The targeting will still be tied to the geo-location of a phone and some knowledge about the owner/user, rather than solely the tracking of phone’s number.

In giving our intelligence community professionals the greatest amount of flexibility in collecting vital information under the reauthorized Section 702 provision, ultimately, it is the targeting procedures, not individual targets, that must be approved by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The reauthorized Section 702 did minimal damage in terms of restoring a barrier between foreign and domestic intelligence. The FBI will still be able to query Section 702 data when a national security case is being investigated by the FBI.

Placing a requirement to get a warrant for every query on the FBI would have unnecessarily created a disincentive for the FBI to query Section 702-collected information and would have introduced unnecessary delays for the FBI in addressing national security threats.

There is no other collection program with more rigorous oversight than what is in place for Section 702. Multiple layers of oversight by all three branches of government have oversight responsibilities. The reauthorization Section 702 has enhanced the whistleblower protections for those who witness unexplained collection anomalies.

The American people should be assured that their civil liberties and privacy rights are not being violated with this program. Rather, as a result of this reauthorization, Americans should have a sense that they are being better protected from foreign threats emanating from the Section 702 capabilities.

Multiple checks and balances are applied to this program, and that should give every American a sense of comfort that their Fourth Amendment rights are not being violated.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of David R. Shedd

David R. Shedd served over 30 years in various intelligence and national security positions, most recently as the acting director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

A Note for our Readers:

Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.

Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.

Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.

Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.

The Daily Signal’s mission is to give Americans the real, unvarnished truth about what is happening in Washington and what must be done to save our country.

Our dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts rely on the financial support of patriots like you.

Your donation helps us fight for access to our nation’s leaders and report the facts.

You deserve the truth about what’s going on in Washington.

Please make a gift to support The Daily Signal.

SUPPORT THE DAILY SIGNAL

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by krblokhin/Getty Images.