Kevin Johnson, USA
TODAY
Inspector
General Michael Horowitz has offered few public indications of the status of
his probe, which some lawmakers said he initially told them was expected to be
complete by early next year.
In early January, news that the Justice
Department’s inspector general launched an investigation into the government's
disputed handling of the Hillary Clinton email inquiry was quickly overtaken
by the chaotic run-up to President Trump’s inauguration.
Nearly a year later, Inspector General
Michael Horowitz’s wide-ranging review of the FBI and Justice’s work in the
politically-charged Clinton case now looms as a potential landmine for Russia
special counsel Robert Mueller.
For months, Horowitz’s investigation — which
has amassed interviews with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former FBI
Director James Comey and other key officials — had been grinding on in near
anonymity. That is, until earlier this month when the inspector general
acknowledged that Mueller was alerted to a cache of text messages
exchanged between two FBI officials on his staff that disparaged Trump.
The communications, involving senior
counter-intelligence agent Peter Strzok and bureau lawyer Lisa Page, were
gathered in the course of Horowitz’s internal review of the Clinton case, which
Strzok also helped oversee. Horowitz’s investigation is not examining Mueller’s
operation. But the disclosures already have provided a hammer to Trump
loyalists who are escalating their criticisms of the legitimacy of the
special counsel’s inquiry.
Earlier this month, FBI Director Christopher
Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein only highlighted the potential
gravity of the inspector general's work when they repeatedly urged Republican
House committee members during separate hearings to withhold judgment about
allegations of bias within the FBI until the internal Justice probe is
completed.
Justice officials have indicated that a
report is likely in the next few months.
"The inspector general's investigation
is very important," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte,
R-Va., told Rosenstein at a Dec. 13 hearing. The deputy attorney general cited
the probe multiple times as the reason for declining to respond to lawmakers'
questions about how the texts might affect Mueller's probe.
"It is very encouraging to us that
(Horowitz) is doing what I think is good, unbiased work," the chairman
said.
_________________________
Rep. Gaetz: Email Evidence From McCabe
Indicates that Hillary Clinton Was Going to Get an 'HQ Special'
Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe
By Debra Heine
A Republican congressman on the House
Judiciary Committee says Hillary Clinton received special treatment during the
email investigation in 2016 while she was running for president.
"We have email evidence from Andrew
McCabe indicating that Hillary Clinton was going to get an 'HQ Special,' a
headquarters special," Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) alleged on Fox News' "America's Newsroom" Friday.
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe met with
both the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees in closed-door hearings on
Thursday.
"The Judiciary Committee is engaged in
an investigation, particularly as it relates to the handling of the Hillary
Clinton email scandal and any potential investigations of the Clinton
Foundation and the handling of bribes or other types of improper
payments," Gaetz said.
He explained that the "headquarter
special" was an indication that "the normal processes at the
Washington field office weren't followed and he had a very small group of
people that had a pro-Hillary Clinton bias who had a direct role in changing
the outcome of that investigation from one that likely should have been
criminal to one where she was able to walk."
Gaetz added, "We've gotta ensure that
that never happens again, that the same processes that would apply to any
American would also apply to people who were running for president of the
United States."
__________________
BREAKING: Andrew McCabe Reportedly Plans To
Retire From FBI Early Next Year
By CHUCK ROSS
Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe plans to
retire from the bureau early next year, according to a new report.
McCabe is retiring amid heavy scrutiny from
congressional Republicans over his roles in the Russia investigation and the
Clinton email probe. Top Republican lawmakers like Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley
have recently called for McCabe’s ouster.
According to The Washington Post, McCabe will leave his
post in a few months, after he becomes eligible for full pension benefits.
McCabe, 49, met for hours earlier this week
with members of three Congressional committees to discuss his work on the Trump
and Clinton investigations.
He was interviewed on Tuesday by the House
Intelligence Committee, which focused on his involvement in handling the
infamous Trump dossier. Fox News reported that McCabe offered few details about
the dossier or the Russia investigation, which was opened at the end of July
2016.
Fox News reported that McCabe was unable to
say what parts of the salacious dossier have been verified by the FBI.
On Thursday, McCabe met jointly with members
of the House Judiciary and House Oversight and Government Reform Committees.
The Russia investigation was off limits during that interview. Instead, McCabe
was pressed on his role in the Clinton email investigation.
McCabe recused himself from that probe
shortly before the presidential campaign after it was reported that his wife
received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a staunch ally of the Clintons.
One Republican lawmaker who took part in
Thursday’s interview told The Daily Caller that Republicans were dissatisfied
with McCabe’s answers regarding the Clinton investigation. The lawmaker
declined to offer details about what part of McCabe’s testimony was inadequate.
McCabe has faced the heaviest criticism of
late over a text message sent last year by Peter Strzok, the former FBI
counterintelligence officer who supervised the collusion investigation.
It was revealed earlier this month that
Strzok sent a text message on Aug. 15, 2016 which referenced a meeting that was
seemingly held in McCabe’s FBI office.
“I want to believe the path you threw out for
consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way [Trump] gets elected — but
I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” Strzok wrote to Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer
who worked closely with McCabe.
“It’s like an insurance policy in the
unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
Republicans have expressed concern over what
“insurance policy” FBI officials had in mind.
Strzok was removed from Special Counsel
Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation in July, when the text messages were
discovered.
McCabe’s departure comes days after The Post
reported that FBI general counsel Jim Baker will be reassigned.
______________________
Was the Steele Dossier the FBI’s
‘Insurance Policy’?
By Andrew C. McCarthy
Clinton
campaign propaganda appears to have triggered Obama administration spying on
Trump’s campaign.
The FBI’s deputy director Andrew McCabe testified at a
marathon seven-hour closed-door hearing of the House Intelligence Committee.
According to the now-infamous text message sent by FBI agent Peter Strzok to
his paramour, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, it was in McCabe’s office that top FBI
counterintelligence officials discussed what they saw as the frightening
possibility of a Trump presidency.
That was during the stretch run of
the 2016 campaign, no more than a couple of weeks after they started receiving
the Steele dossier — the Clinton campaign’s opposition-research reports,
written by former British spy Christopher Steele, about Trump’s purportedly
conspiratorial relationship with Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia.
Was it the Steele dossier that so
frightened the FBI?
I think so.
There is a great deal of information
to follow. But let’s cut to the chase: The Obama-era FBI and Justice Department
had great faith in Steele because he had previously collaborated with the
bureau on a big case. Plus, Steele was working on the Trump-Russia project
with the wife of a top Obama Justice Department official, who was personally
briefed by Steele.
The upper ranks of the FBI and DOJ strongly preferred
Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, to the point of overlooking significant
evidence of her felony misconduct, even as they turned up the heat on Trump.
In sum, the FBI and DOJ were predisposed to believe the allegations in Steele’s
dossier. Because of their confidence in Steele, because they were predisposed
to believe his scandalous claims about Donald Trump, they made grossly
inadequate efforts to verify his claims. Contrary to what I hoped would be
the case, I’ve come to believe Steele’s claims were used to obtain FISA
surveillance authority for an investigation of Trump.
There were layers of insulation
between the Clinton campaign and Steele — the campaign and the Democratic party
retained a law firm, which contracted with Fusion GPS, which in turn hired the
former spy.
At some point, though, perhaps early on, the FBI and DOJ learned
that the dossier was actually a partisan opposition-research product. By
then, they were dug in. No one, after all, would be any the wiser: Hillary
would coast to victory, so Democrats would continue running the government;
FISA materials are highly classified, so they’d be kept under wraps. Just as it
had been with the Obama-era’s Fast and Furious and IRS scandals, any
malfeasance would remain hidden.
The best
laid schemes . . . gang aft agley.
Why It Matters
Strzok’s text about the meeting in McCabe’s office is dated August 16, 2016. As we’ll see, the date is important. According to Agent Strzok, with Election Day less than three months away, Page, the bureau lawyer, weighed in on Trump’s bid: “There’s no way he gets elected.” Strzok, however, believed that even if a Trump victory was the longest of long shots, the FBI “can’t take that risk.” He insisted that the bureau had no choice but to proceed with a plan to undermine Trump’s candidacy: “It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
The Wall
Street Journal reported Monday that, “according to people familiar with
his account,” Strzok meant that it was imperative that the FBI “aggressively
investigate allegations of collusion between Donald Trump’s campaign and
Russia.”
In laughable strawman fashion, the “people familiar with his account”
assure the Journal that Strzok “didn’t intend to suggest a secret plan
to harm the candidate.” Of course, no sensible person suspects that the FBI was
plotting Trump’s assassination; the suspicion is that,
motivated by partisanship and spurred by shoddy information that it failed to
verify, the FBI exploited its counterintelligence powers in hopes of
derailing Trump’s presidential run.
But what
were these “allegations of collusion between Donald Trump’s campaign and
Russia” that the FBI decided to “aggressively investigate”? The Journal
doesn’t say. Were they the allegations in the Steele dossier?
It is a question that was pressed by Chairman Devin
Nunes (R., Calif.) and Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee
at Tuesday’s sealed hearing. As I explained in the column, the question is
critical for three reasons:
(1) The
Steele dossier was a Clinton campaign product. If it was used by the FBI and
the Obama Justice Department to obtain a FISA warrant, that would mean
law-enforcement agencies controlled by a Democratic president fed the FISA
court political campaign material produced by the Democratic candidate whom the
president had endorsed to succeed him. Partisan claims of egregious
scheming with an adversarial foreign power would have been presented to the
court with the FBI’s imprimatur, as if they were drawn from refined U.S.
intelligence reporting. The objective would have been to spy on the opposition
Republican campaign.
(2) In
June of this year, former FBI director James Comey testified that the dossier
was “salacious and unverified.” While still director, Comey had
described the dossier the same way when he briefed President-elect Trump on it
in January 2017. If the dossier was still unverified as late as mid 2017,
its allegations could not possibly have been verified months earlier, in the
late summer or early autumn of 2016, when it appears that the FBI and DOJ used
them in an application to the FISA court.
(3) The
dossier appears to contain misinformation. Knowing he was a spy-for-hire
trusted by Americans, Steele’s Russian-regime sources had reason to believe
that misinformation could be passed into the stream of U.S. intelligence and
that it would be acted on — and leaked — as if it were true, to America’s
detriment. This would sow discord in our political system. If the FBI and DOJ
relied on the dossier, it likely means they were played by the Putin regime.
