Hard Drive Tied to Wasserman Schultz Is Central To Imran Awan Case

A court date for a former Democratic IT aide has been postponed by more than a month after the defendant’s attorney, a former Hillary Clinton aide, said he’s seeking to block prosecutors from using evidence that appears to include a government laptop tied to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

“The government has been in discussions with counsel for the defendants regarding complex discovery issues and other legal issues in this case, in particular issues surrounding claims of attorney-client privilege being raised by defendant Imran Awan,” court papers filed Tuesday say.

“Last night, counsel for both defendants indicated that they need additional time to review and analyze these issues, along with the voluminous discovery the government provided in this case,” according to the documents. “The government consents to this request.”

Chris Gowen, Awan’s attorney, said at the last hearing: “We do expect there being an attorney-client privilege issue in this case… What occurred is a backpack from my client was found, he was trying to get a better signal, there was a note that said attorney client privilege and a hard drive. We feel very strongly about this.”

A Capitol Police report shows that the backpack contained the following items:

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Secret Donors Are Financing Leandra English Lawsuit Against Trump

Secret donors are financing the lawsuit against President Donald Trump and White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney over who runs the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Deepak Gupta, the lead lawyer of a boutique law firm that launched its suit on behalf of CFPB acting director Leandra English, confirmed in a CNBC interview that English is not paying for his hourly fees, but rather unknown anonymous donors are.

Gupta refused to name who is funding the lawsuit, making it difficult to ascertain the motives, intentions, or any special interests of those underwriting the case.

The D.C. lawyer appeared caught off guard when CNBC hosts asked who was financing his effort. He stumbled over his words in his first answer and said some form of unidentified “structure” was being put in place to accept funds from anonymous donors.

“Well, uh, it’s, it’s not, um, Miss, um English, um, ah. There are ethics lawyers that we’ve consulted, and we have a structure set up that is with ethics rules and, um, we’ll and we’ll be talking about that once we have that,” he told CNBC.

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Dem Congressman Arranged Secret “Severance Package” For Staffer Over Misconduct Claims

Washington Times reports:

Rep. Raul M. Grijalva quietly arranged a “severance package” in 2015 for one of his top staffers who threatened a lawsuit claiming the Arizona Democrat was frequently drunk and created a hostile workplace environment, revealing yet another way that lawmakers can use taxpayer dollars to hide their misbehavior on Capitol Hill.

While the Office of Compliance has been the focus of outrage on Capitol Hill for hush-money payouts in sexual harassment cases, the Grijalva payout points to another office that lawmakers can use to sweep accusations under the rug with taxpayer-funded settlements negotiated by the House Employment Counsel, which acts as the attorney for all House offices.

The employment counsel negotiated a deal for taxpayers to give $48,395 — five additional months’ salary — to the female aide, who left her job after three months. She didn’t pursue the hostile workplace complaint further.

“On the advice of House Employment Counsel, I provided a severance package to a former employee who resigned. The severance did not involve the Office of Compliance and at no time was any allegation of sexual harassment made, and no sexual harassment occurred,” Rep. Grijalva stated to The Washington Times.

“Under the terms of the agreement, had there been an allegation of sexual harassment, the employee would have been free to report it. Regrettably, for me to provide any further details on this matter would violate the agreement,” Grijalva added.

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Ex-Cop Making Roy Moore Harassment Claim Is Leftist, Anti-Moore Opponent

Few witnesses could be more damning against a purported sexual abuser of four decades ago than an ex-cop from that era. That is, unless the ex-cop has a hidden agenda. Like the former Gadsden, Alabama, cop who claims police were told in the 1970s to ensure that now-GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore stayed away from teen cheerleaders — and who actually turns out to be a left-wing Moore opponent.

Faye Gary created quite a stir last week with her comments, though she confessed to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that the claims about Judge Moore were “just rumors” and that “we never got a complaint on it.”

What didn’t come out during her media interview — in which she appeared sober and non-partisan — is that she has an ideological axe to grind with the judge.

After confirming with the City of Gadsden Personnel Office that Gary actually had served as a police officer, I contacted her via a Facebook message. The passion and anger quickly emerged, with Gary making clear she objected to Moore’s stances on homosexuality, Islam, and the display of the Ten Commandments.

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BANNON: ‘One Thing Has Forever Broken the Democrat Party’

The Democrat Party is in shambles after losing over one-thousand seats around the country under former President Obama. President Trump’s stunning victory last November made the Democrat Party’s situation even more precarious. Yet, according to former Chief White House Strategist Steve Bannon, both events are recoverable — what’s not — is the degree to which identity politics has infected the Party.

Stephen K. Bannon believes that the Democratic Party’s obsession with identity politics will ultimately backfire against them. In fact, he believes this has broken the party to such a degree that it will never recover.

Bannon, with the whiteboard in his office and his eagerness to check off Trump campaign promises as accomplished, took the brunt of the blame for the administration moving too quickly. But he says the uproar had its upside: It helped create “the resistance” that Bannon believes thoroughly delegitimizes the Democratic Party with average voters it needs to win elections. He claimed he knew the outrage was coming, and that the Left had fallen into a trap. “The Left bit on it, and created the resistance, and it blew up, and now it’s part of the political movement,” Bannon said. “It’s what’s broken the Democratic Party.”

“Bannon’s belief that the Democratic Party’s addiction to divisive identity politics may succeed in stirring up much noise on the fringes, but that this very tactic will work against them among the very same minority groups they are using to cause an uprising,” writes Bannon: Always the Rebel author Keith Koffler.

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DoJ: House Dem May Face Wire Fraud, Obstruction, Conspiracy Charges From 2012 Payoff

After an avalanche of perversion, this old-fashioned political corruption scandal might seem relatively refreshing. An FBI probe into campaign-finance corruption has circled ever closer to Rep. Bob Brady, the Pennsylvania Democrat who got served with a search warrant earlier this month. The Department of Justice has Brady in its targets over a scheme to pay off a fellow Democrat to get him out of a primary — a scheme that already has one man pleading guilty to corruption:

SEE ALSO: Ethics sirens times two: New allegations emerge against Franken, Conyers

The F.B.I. is investigating whether Representative Robert A. Brady of Pennsylvania, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, illegally paid a political opponent $90,000 to drop out of a 2012 primary race, court documents show. …

According to the court papers, Mr. Moore, who is cooperating with the government, told law enforcement officials that he attended a meeting in February 2012 with Mr. Brady arranged by W. Wilson Goode Sr., the former mayor of Philadelphia. At that meeting, Mr. Moore said, Mr. Brady agreed to pay $90,000 toward Mr. Moore’s campaign debts, in exchange for Mr. Moore’s agreement to drop out of the race.

“In that conversation, Brady and Moore agreed and understood that the payment from Brady’s campaign to Moore’s campaign would be disguised, and the deception would include hiding at least some of the Bob Brady for Congress campaign funds as the purchase of the aforementioned poll,” the affidavit stated.

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SWAMPTASTIC! Dem Congressman Who Oversees Sexual Harassment Settlements is Under FBI Investigation

Democrat Congressman Bob Brady of Pennsylvania is under FBI investigation for false statements, conspiracy and campaign fraud, Newsweek reported.

Brady is apparently Congress’ most trusted man to oversee sexual harassment cases. Amazing.

Pennsylvania Congressman Bob Brady, who oversees the settlements paid by Congress for sexual discrimination complaints, is under FBI investigation for false statements, conspiracy and campaign fraud, documents showed Tuesday.

Brady, a Democrat, is a ranking member of the Committee on House Administration, which gives him power over settlement payments with taxpayer dollars. The office also works to prevent sexual harassment in Congress.

The FBI obtained a search warrant for Brady’s emails.

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Sessions DOJ Caught Downplaying Evidence Linking Obama And Hillary To Uranium-One Scandal

The evidence comes amid the secret FBI informant behind the Uranium-One deal breaking his silence.

Last week, William Campbell came forward as the secret FBI informant, saying he is eager to testify because of his “concerns about Russia’s activities in the United States, but declined to comment further,” reports Reuters.

“I have worked with the Justice Department undercover for several years, and documentation relating to Uranium One and political influence does exist, and I have it,” Campbell told Reuters.

“FBI informant Campbell, acting as a consultant trying to help Rosatom overcome political opposition to the Uranium One deal, gathered evidence for six years, and, according to the more than 5,000 pages of documents from the counterintelligence investigation, there are a number of evidentiary links between corrupt Russians, President Obama, and Hillary Clinton,” reports Zerohedge.

Here’s how Sessions and Rosenstein attempted to downplay proof linking Obama and Clinton to the Uranium-One scandal.

The Hill reports:

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Top NSA Whistleblower Claims ‘Russiagate’ a Fake to Increase War-Spending

William Binney is the mathematician and Russia-specialist, who quit the NSA in 2001 as its global Technical Director for geopolitical analysis, because of the lying about, and manipulations of, intelligence, that he saw — distortions of intelligence by the George W. Bush Administration — in order to ‘justify’ systematic, massive, and all-encompassing, Government snooping into all Americans’ private electronic communications. His, and some colleagues’, efforts to get the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Defense to investigate the matter, produced FBI raids into their homes, and seizures of their computers, so as to remove incriminating evidence they might have against higher-ups. According to Binney, NSA’s Director, General Michael Hayden, had vetoed in August 2001 a far less intrusive and more effective system of signals-intelligence collection and analysis, which, if it had been in place, might have enabled the 9/11 attacks to be blocked — a more effective system that would have been less expensive, less intrusive, and not violated Americans’ Constitutional rights. Hayden went on to head the CIA, until the end of George W. Bush’s Presidency. Afterward, General Hayden joined the Chertoff Group and other military-industrial-complex contractors of the U.S. Federal Government. There were no such rewards for any of the whistleblowers.

Binney viewed Hillary Clinton as continuing George W. Bush’s neoconservatism, and so — though reluctantly — voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

On November 15th, an interview of Binney was published at the Washingtonsblog news-site, titled “How to Instantly Prove (Or Disprove) Russian Hacking of U.S. Election”, in which Binney provides technical details to explain why he strongly believes that the Democratic Party’s allegations — the allegations which say that Russia was the source of the leaks of information from the computers of the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta — are nothing more than intentional concoctions and distortions, which are backed and promoted by America’s military-industrial complex, whose stock-values rise accordingly with the lies.

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NY Times Columnist: I Now Believe Broaddrick’s Claims Against Bill Clinton

The New York Times ran an opinion piece headlined, “I Believe Juanita,” referring to Juanita Broaddrick, who accused Bill Clinton of sexually assaulting her.

Columnist Michelle Goldberg began the piece railing against “right-wing” conspiracists for putting Democrats on their heels during the Clinton years and forcing Democrats to apologize for Clinton’s behavior when they shouldn’t have.

But Goldberg admitted that Broaddrick’s claim now haunts her, in light of the recent uptick in celebrities that face allegations of sexual harassment and assault:

Of the Clinton accusers, the one who haunts me is Broaddrick. The story she tells about Clinton recalls those we’ve heard about Weinstein. She claimed they had plans to meet in a hotel coffee shop, but at the last minute he asked to come up to her hotel room instead, where he raped her.

Five witnesses said she confided in them about the assault right after it happened. It’s true that she denied the rape in an affidavit to Paula Jones’s lawyers, before changing her story when talking to federal investigators. But her explanation, that she didn’t want to go public but couldn’t lie to the F.B.I., makes sense. Put simply, I believe her.

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Fusion GPS Founder Had Not Verified Dossier Claims When He Briefed Reporters

The founder of Fusion GPS told the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that he was upset over former FBI Director James Comey’s decision to reopen the Hillary Clinton email investigation just before Election Day, a source familiar with the testimony tells The Daily Caller.

Glenn Simpson, who founded Fusion in 2011, also acknowledged to the House panel that he did not verify information in the uncorroborated and salacious dossier before briefing reporters on its contents during the campaign, the source says.

Fox News first reported similar revelations from Simpson’s seven-hour, closed-door meeting.

As part of the dossier project, which was funded by the Clinton campaign and DNC, Simpson and the dossier’s author, Christopher Steele, briefed numerous Beltway reporters about allegations in the document.

Steele has revealed in court papers in London, where he is being sued, that he was directed by Fusion to brief reporters at The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Yahoo! News and The New Yorker in September 2016.

Steele gave an interview via Skype to David Corn, a reporter at Mother Jones. Corn published an Oct. 31, 2016 article that vaguely described Steele’s allegations, though without naming the retired spook.

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Speier: U.S. House Paid $15 Million to Its Secret Sexual Harassment Victims

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd on Meet the Press Daily on Tuesday that the U.S. House of Representatives has paid $15 million to alleged victims of sexual harassment by its own members in recent years.

“We do know there is about $15 million that has been paid out by the House on behalf of harassers in the last ten to 15 years,” she said.

“15 million dollars has been paid out over sexual harassment claims,” Todd replied, somewhat shocked. “So, obviously more than one member of Congress.”

Pressed for details, Speier said she did not know how many members of Congress were involved. She also explained that victims had signed non-disclosure agreements.

“If the taxpayers are involved, don’t we have the right to know?” Todd asked later in the segment.

“I think you do have the right to know,” she said. “But right now, under the system, you don’t have a right to know.”

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It’s Been A Year, And We Still Don’t Know Who’s Behind Worst NSA Leak In History

U.S. investigators remain stymied after more than a year of investigating as to how some of the most sensitive hacking tools developed by the National Security Agency (NSA) fell into the hands of hackers, The New York Times reports.

The hunt for the mole, moles, or leaks has reportedly caused a major drop in morale at the agency as employees are subjected to intense security checks. These checks include polygraph tests, turning over their passports, and other scrutiny detracting from day to day jobs.

Intelligence officials characterized the leak of hacking tools as far outstripping any damage done by 2013 leaker Edward Snowden. The leaked information has slowly been posted online by a hacking group known as “The Shadow Brokers” purportedly selling the information. Some officials feared the Russian government may be behind the group.

The leaks appear to come from different parts of the NSA raising the possibility of multiple vulnerabilities. Much of the information appears to come from within the agency around 2013, raising questions as to why it is being released now.

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Judge Roy Moore Announces Plans to Sue Washington Post: ‘We Expect the People of Alabama to See Through This Charade’

Judge Roy Moore, the GOP nominee for the United States Senate, announced Sunday evening at an event that he plans to sue the Washington Post for its series of hit pieces against him, his wife, his foundation, and his campaign.

Breitbart News was granted exclusive access to the event, which was closed to the press. After the Judge’s speech, his wife Kayla spoke out in a forthcoming exclusive Breitbart News interview — her first-ever interview with the press during this campaign and the first time she has spoken out publicly in response to the salacious allegations from the Post.

“Shortly after becoming the Republican nominee for the United States Senate, the Washington Post published an article attacking me, my wife, my Foundation for Moral Law in Montgomery, Alabama, on my salary,” Moore announced to a crowd of about 100 supporters at the Huntsville Christian Academy:

They said I took over a million dollars. There were not a million dollars. I wish I had a million dollars. In fact, I didn’t take the money they awarded me for a salary because I had my own recognition and opted to embrace that salary myself and not take anything from the foundation. So my salary collection wasn’t so much. Over eight years it would have been about $87,000 a year—so I had to take a note and a mortgage for the rest of it. But I never got the money. So, the Washington Post finally realized this after they published an article saying my wife and I got a million dollars, saying, “you didn’t pay taxes for what you didn’t get.”

The audience laughed before Moore continued.

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Mitch McConnell Leads Establishment Republicans in Effort to Push Roy Moore Out of Alabama Race

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and several other Republican senators said on Thursday that if allegations of misconduct are true, Alabama Senate Republican candidate Judge Roy Moore should drop out of the race.

The Washington Post released a story on Thursday alleging that Roy Moore initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl when he was 32, as well as other cases of sexual misconduct.

In a written statement, Moore denied the allegations.

“These allegations are completely false and are a desperate political attack by the National Democrat Party and the Washington Post on this campaign,” Moore said.

Axios has compiled the calls for Moore to step aside.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “If these allegations are true, he must step aside.”

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) argued, “If there is any shred of truth to the allegations against Roy Moore, he should step aside immediately.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said, “If there is any truth at all to these horrific allegations, Roy Moore should immediately step aside as a Senate candidate.”

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Comey Softened Language In Hillary Memo Even After CIA Officials Called Her Emails ‘Problematic’

CIA officials described emails found on Hillary Clinton’s private email server as “problematic” and damaging to the agency, according to summaries of interviews they gave to the FBI last May and June.

The timing of the interviews is significant because they are within a 39 day time window in which top FBI officials, including then-director James Comey, edited language in a draft memo of a statement that was to be given at the conclusion of the Clinton email probe.

A May 2, 2016 memo sent by Comey to three top bureau officials referred to Clinton’s use of a private email server to send and receive classified information as “grossly negligent.”

But according to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the memo was changed on or around June 10 to refer to Clinton’s actions as merely “extremely careless.”

The distinction between “grossly negligent” and “extremely careless” is significant because the former is considered a federal crime while the latter term has no legal weight.

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Fusion GPS Founder Met With Russian At Center Of Trump Tower Meeting

The founder of the opposition research firm behind the Steele dossier met with the Russian attorney who attended the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting before and after the controversial conclave, Fox News is reporting.

The revelation could prove significant to understanding how the Trump dossier was put together. Fusion GPS was the firm that commissioned the document, which was financed by the Clinton campaign and DNC and written by former British spy Christopher Steele.

Glenn Simpson, a founding partner of Fusion GPS, was with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya just hours before she attended the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower session. Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, was also with Veselnitskaya after the meeting,

Steele’s first dossier memo was written just 11 days after the meeting, which is currently being scrutinized by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Among the document’s many claims is that the Kremlin had been feeding intelligence to Donald Trump. That intelligence allegedly included damaging material on Hillary Clinton.

There has been no verification that the Trump Tower meeting is described in the dossier. But the session, which reportedly lasted less than 30 minutes, took place after Donald Trump Jr. was offered dirt on Clinton.

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Report: Comey Accused Clinton Of ‘Gross Negligence’ In Email Case

Former FBI Director James Comey considered Hillary Clinton’s handling classified information on her private email account to be “grossly negligent,” according to a May 2016 draft of a memo he sent to other FBI officials last year.

But that language was watered down by the time Comey gave a July 5, 2016 press conference in which he announced that he was recommending to the Justice Department that Clinton not be prosecuted in the case.

Comey called Clinton’s email habits “extremely careless” during that press conference.

The change, first reported by The Hill, is significant because gross negligence in the handling of classified information can be punishable by jail time.

“There is evidence to support a conclusion that Secretary Clinton, and others, used the email server in a manner that was grossly negligent with respect to the handling of classified information,” reads a May 2, 2016 statement prepared by Comey.

Comey also wrote in the draft that “the sheer volume of information that was properly classified as Secret at the time it was discussed on email…supports an inference that the participants were grossly negligent in their handling of that information.”

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Tony Podesta Lobbied For Russia’s ‘Uranium One’ And Did Not File As A Foreign Agent

Tony Podesta’s lobbying firm, the Podesta Group, represented the Russian-owned company Uranium One during former President Barack Obama’s administration and did not register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, The Daily Caller News Foundation has determined.

Podesta collected lobbying fees of $180,000 from Uranium One, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, that discloses lobbying documents filed with Congress. The uranium company states on its web site it is a “wholly owned subsidiary” of RUSANO, the Russian State Corporation for Nuclear Energy.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller already is scrutinizing Podesta and his firm for allegedly failing to register as a lobbyist for the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, a Ukrainian government entity.  His role there is tied up with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort who was indicted on 12 counts on Oct. 30, including the failure to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

A cabinet-led federal committee that included former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, approved the sale of Uranium One to RUSANO in 2010, that permitted Russia to acquire twenty percent of America’s uranium reserves.

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Trump: ‘I’m Very Frustrated’ I Can’t Order DOJ To Investigate Hillary

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he is “frustrated” he can’t order around the Justice Department.

“But you know the saddest thing, because I’m the President of the United States I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department. I am not supposed to be involved with the FBI,” Trump told WMAL host Larry O’Connor. “I’m not supposed to be doing the kinds of things I would love to be doing and I’m very frustrated by it.”

“Why aren’t they going after Hillary Clinton with her emails and with the dossier, and the kind of money?” Trump added. “Now, maybe they are, but as president, and I think you understand this, as a president you are not supposed to be involved in that process.”

After this interview with the Washington-area conservative radio host, Trump tweeted out his frustration.

“Donna Brazile just stated the DNC RIGGED the system to illegally steal the Primary from Bernie Sanders. Bought and paid for by Crooked H,” Trump wrote. “This is real collusion and dishonesty. Major violation of Campaign Finance Laws and Money Laundering – where is our Justice Department?”

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Here’s How Much The Clinton Campaign And DNC Paid For The Trump Dossier

The Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee paid just over $1 million for the infamous Trump dossier, the opposition research firm behind the salacious document said on Wednesday.

Fusion GPS, the Washington, D.C.-based firm, made the disclosures to the House Intelligence Committee last week, according to Reuters.

Fusion, founded by three former Wall Street Journal reporters, also disclosed that of the $1.02 million it received from Democrats, the firm paid the author of the dossier, Christopher Steele, $168,000 for his work on the document.

Steele, a former British intelligence officer, was hired by Fusion GPS last June. His 35-page dossier, chock full of allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government, has been used by the FBI as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the presidential election.

The payments to Fusion GPS for the dossier were made by Perkins Coie, the law firm that represents the Clinton campaign and DNC. Perkins Coie partner Marc Elias, who served as general counsel for both entities, was the bagman for the project, The Washington Post reported last week.

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Kaine Falsely Claims Conservative News Outlet Funded Dossier

Sen. Tim Kaine falsely accused the Washington Free Beacon of funding the Russian dossier when it is clear they stopped paying Fusion GPS before the firm worked on the dossier.

The Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign were revealed as funders of the dossier that alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Kaine tried to deflect from that fact during a Tuesday interview on CNN, instead incorrectly blaming the Washington Free Beacon.

“Do you see these things as equivalent–of the Hillary campaign looking for dirt from Russians and Russians offering dirt to the Trump campaign?” CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota asked Kaine.

“If you’re asking about the dossier, that was funded by a conservative, online news publication–the Washington Free Beacon,” Kaine falsely stated. “And they hired a British secret service agent and then when they decided to drop it, apparently…some of the funds used to continue the investigation were used by the Clinton campaign.”

However, reporting indicates clearly that Kaine’s version of events is incorrect.

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