Democrats Ignore Dossier In Russia Report, In Stark Contrast To Their Early Rhetoric

What a difference a year makes.

At a House Intelligence Committee hearing just over a year ago, Democrats on the panel focused heavily on the infamous Steele dossier, the salacious and unverified report alleging that the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election.

California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee, made numerous references to Steele’s claims during an opening statement for the hearing, which was held on March 20, 2017. 

Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro pressed then-FBI Director James Comey about specific allegations made about Trump associates in the dossier, which was written by former British spy Christopher Steele. Indiana Rep. Andre Carson and California Rep. Jackie Speier, two other committee Democrats, also hyped the dossier.

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DOJ Gives Congress Missing Strzok-Page Text Messages

The Justice Department on Thursday gave Congress five months worth of text messages exchanged between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page — two FBI officials involved in the investigations into Hillary Clinton and President Donald Trump’s campaign.

The messages, exchanged between Dec. 14, 2016, and May 17, 2017, were initially thought to be missing due to a technical glitch on FBI-issued cell phones. But the texts were recovered by the Justice Department’s office of the inspector general, which is investigating the FBI’s handling of both the Clinton and Trump campaign investigations.

Approximately 300 messages were given to Congress, a Justice Department official told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Strzok, the former deputy chief of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, was removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia team in July 2017 after the discovery of the text messages. They showed Strzok and Page expressed deep hostility to Trump during the 2016 campaign.

Strzok oversaw the FBI’s Russia investigation when it began on July 31, 2016. He was also a top investigator on the Clinton email probe. He helped conduct the interviews of Clinton and several of her top aides.

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Michael Cohen Pleads The Fifth In Stormy Daniels Case

Michael Cohen, the long-time attorney for President Donald Trump, will plead the Fifth in a lawsuit former porn star Stormy Daniels filed, he told a federal court on Wednesday.

Cohen cited an FBI investigation of his business dealings as a rationale to invoke his right against self-incrimination.

FBI agents raided Cohen’s office, residence and hotel room on April 9 in search of various business records, including those related to payments he made to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.

Cohen is being investigated for potential bank fraud, wire fraud and campaign finance violations. Cohen paid Clifford $130,000 in October 2016. The payments were hush money to cover up an affair Clifford had with Trump in 2006, she claims.

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TheDCNF Files Lawsuit To Disclose Comey And Obama Meetings

• The Daily Caller News Foundation and Judicial Watch will file a federal lawsuit Wednesday
• The lawsuit is seeking records related to meetings between former FBI Director James Comey and former President Barack Obama
• Comey’s statements regarding times he met with the president conflict with other statements and records

The Daily Caller News Foundation and the watchdog group Judicial Watch will file a lawsuit in federal court Wednesday seeking records to determine the actual number of times and reasons former FBI Director James Comey met with then-President Barack Obama.

The request by the two organizations was filed because the former FBI director claimed he rarely met with Obama, and he was an independent and nonpartisan leader of the nation’s top law enforcement agency. The parties will file the lawsuit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Comey’s impartiality about his relationship with Obama was sharply called into question by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary when its chairman, Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, uncovered a private, undisclosed meeting Comey held with Obama on Jan. 5, 2017, two weeks before Trump’s inauguration.

TheDCNF requested, “records that identify and describe all meetings between former FBI Director James Comey and President Barack Obama,” in its Freedom of Information Act request before the FBI, which it filed Feb. 19.

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Roger Stone To Use DNC Lawsuit Discovery To Probe Servers, Hacking Evidence

Longtime Republican strategist Roger Stone and his lawyers intend to try and examine the Democratic National Committee’s servers for evidence of Russian hacking amid an ongoing lawsuit, he told The Daily Caller Monday.

The DNC sued the 2016 Trump campaign, Stone, Manafort, Wikileaks and other involved entities Friday alleging an illegal conspiracy with the Russian government. The lawsuit “is based on conjecture, supposition and projection with no evidence, facts or proof,” Stone said in an email to The DC.

“The DNC lawsuit opens the door of discovery. My lawyers and I want to examine the DNC servers to settle this bogus claim of Russian hacking once and for all,” Stone declared.

A letter from Stone’s lawyers to the DNC said, “One purpose of this letter is to advise the DNC we intend to test the basic underlying claims that “Russians” hacked, stole, and disseminated DNC data, rather than the various other plausible scenarios, including internal theft.”

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Trump Is Right: A ‘Pakistani Mystery Man’ Has Documents Wasserman Schultz Didn’t Want Prosecutors To See

A key, if under-covered, aspect of the “Pakistani mystery man” story is that Imran Awan, the Pakistani-born IT aide of former DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz, took a laptop with username RepDWS after he was banned from the House computer network for “unauthorized access to data,” and then left it in a phone booth with a letter to prosecutors.

On Friday, President Donald Trump tweeted: “Just heard the Campaign was sued by the Obstructionist Democrats. This can be good news in that we will now counter for the DNC Server that they refused to give to the FBI, the Debbie Wasserman Schultz Servers and Documents held by the Pakistani mystery man and Clinton Emails.”

Trump appears to have accurately identified a key issue with the “Pakistani mystery man” that comes straight from court documents.

• Lawyers for Pakistani-born Imran Awan currently have a copy of the contents of a laptop with the username RepDWS
• Wasserman Schultz wanted to block prosecutors from seeing what was on it
• Imran’s lawyers have attempted to set up a situation where it is up to Imran whether prosecutors can see the laptop, claiming “attorney client privilege”
• Other analysts say the laptop should be fair game for review

Each twist has increased the intrigue:

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New Emails Reinforce Claims Of DOJ, FBI Collusion In Clinton Email Investigation

New evidence points to collusion between the Department of Justice and FBI at a pivotal moment in the Hillary Clinton email probe, according to emails recently reviewed by Fox News.

The February 2016 emails were written in the aftermath of 22 messages labeled “Top Secret” having been found on Clinton’s private email server from her 2009-2013 tenure as secretary of state.

In congressional testimony, former FBI Director James Comey dismissed notions of DOJ-FBI coordination during their look into the matter, specifically denying any conspiracy with the Department of Justice in his advisement against pursuing charges in the Clinton case in July of 2016.

By contrast, however, in a letter issued Wednesday, Republican North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows noted communication that, in his view, designated points of possible collusion at “crucial moments of the investigation.”

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It’s Andrew McCabe Versus James Comey

Former FBI Director Andrew McCabe is locked in a battle of “he said-he said” with his former boss, James Comey, over the findings of a damning report from the Justice Department’s office of the inspector general (OIG).

McCabe’s lawyer, Michael Bromwich, issued a statement on Wednesday casting doubt on Comey and the OIG’s report, which was released April 13.

“The report fails to adequately address the evidence (including sworn testimony) and documents that prove that Mr. McCabe advised Director Comey repeatedly that he was working with The Wall Street Journal on the stories in question prior to publication,” Bromwich said in a statement CNN published.

“Neither Mr. Comey nor the OIG is infallible, and in this case, neither of them has it right.”

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Even James Comey Supports Andrew McCabe Firing

Former FBI Director James Comey praised a Department of Justice inspector general report which triggered the firing of former deputy director Andrew McCabe in an interview on ABCNews Good Morning America.

Comey noted that the inspector general report, released Friday, “demonstrates the life of an institution that cares about the truth, and investigates and holds people accountable.” McCabe was fired by FBI Director Christopher Wray after the report concluded that “then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe lacked candor, including under oath, on multiple occasions in connection with describing his role in connection with a disclosure to the WSJ.”

McCabe and Comey have been heavily criticized by President Donald Trump for respective leaks to the media with the president even calling for their imprisonment Monday.

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Here’s Why You Should Be Skeptical Of That Michael Cohen Prague Story

McClatchy reporters Peter Stone and Greg Gordon rocked the political world Friday when they reported special counsel Robert Mueller has evidence Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, visited Prague in the summer of 2016.

The report appeared to confirm one of the infamous Trump-Russia dossier’s key allegations: that Cohen met in Prague with a Kremlin official about Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The development would be significant because Cohen has adamantly denied making the Prague trip.

But three days later, no other news outlet has confirmed the report, and there are reasons to be skeptical.

A spokesperson for the special counsel’s office wouldn’t comment on the Cohen-Prague story specifically, but told The Daily Caller News Foundation that “many stories” about the Russia investigation have been “inaccurate.”

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Behind The IG Report — How The Obama Justice Department Tried To Shut Down The FBI’s Investigation Into The Clinton Foundation

• The Department of Justice Inspector General released a report Friday claiming “lack of candor” by former FBI deputy Director Andrew McCabe
• The report also details Justice Department’s influence to close a multi-state investigation into the Clinton Foundation
• The IG claims McCabe leaked DOJ’s pressure to end the Clinton investigation to battle claims he was partial to the Clintons

The Department of Justice Inspector General report on the “lack of candor” by FBI deputy Director Andrew McCabe also documents for the first time the Obama administration’s effort to shut down the bureau’s investigation of the Clinton Foundation, according to a review of the report by The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group.

The inspector general (IG) confirmed in its long-awaited report released Friday that in 2016 the FBI had ongoing field investigations of the Clinton Foundation in New York, Los Angeles, Little Rock, Arkansas and Washington, D.C. The multi-city investigation was launched when agents found “suspicious activity” between a foreign donor and Clinton Foundation activity in the Los Angeles area, as The DCNF reported in August 2016.

The report, authored by Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz, an Obama appointee, chronicles the Justice Department’s effort to to shut down the FBI’s investigation on Aug. 12, 2016. The pressure allegedly came in the form of a phone call to McCabe from a Justice Department principal associate deputy attorney general (PADAG) who pressed McCabe on the continuing investigation.

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Trump Considering Another Controversial Pardon

President Donald Trump has signed off on a pardon for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, who was convicted in 2007 of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements.

Trump has been considering a pardon for Libby for months, ABC News reported Thursday. Several conservative operatives and attorneys pressed Trump for the pardon, according to ABC.

Libby was convicted in 2007 of lying to the FBI about his role in leaking the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison in the case, but President George W. Bush commuted his sentence. Bush declined issuing a pardon.

Libby resigned from the White House in October 2005 after being indicted in the case.

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If the pardon goes through, it will be the second high-profile pardon Trump okayed. Maricopa Co. Sheriff Joe Arpaio was pardoned on Aug. 25, 2017, for a criminal contempt of court conviction.

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DOJ Relents, Provides House Intel With Crucial Russia Probe Document

Facing threats of legal action, the Justice Department on Wednesday provided the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence with a two-page document showing the FBI’s basis for opening the Russia counterintelligence investigation during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The agency provided the document, known as an Electronic Communication, or EC, after California Rep. Devin Nunes and South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Nunes sent a letter to Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray April 4, demanding an un-redacted copy of the EC, as well as access to applications for surveillance warrants against President Donald Trump’s former campaign adviser, Carter Page. Nunes set April 11 as the deadline for the document production.

In an interview on Tuesday, Nunes threatened to potentially impeach Rosenstein and Wray if they refused to turn over the EC.

Rosenstein seemingly relented, providing a minimally redacted copy of the EC to Nunes and Gowdy. The two-page document contains some redactions to protect the name of a foreign country and a foreign agent, a Justice Department official told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The official said that all members of the Intelligence Committee were provided with access to a lightly redacted version of the EC.

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Fake News Nearly Caused Trump To Fire Mueller

President Donald Trump considered firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller in December 2017 after the publication of news stories that turned out to be inaccurate.

Trump told advisers to fire Mueller following reports the special counsel’s office subpoenaed his bank records from Deutsche Bank, according to The New York Times. Trump believed the subpoenas crossed a “red line” he had set for the Mueller probe, which initially began as an investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.

Trump ordered Mueller’s firing at least one other time. Trump demanded White House counsel Don McGahn fire Mueller in June 2017 because the president believed the special counsel’s prosecutors and investigators were politically biased, The Times previously reported. But Trump backed down after McGahn threatened to resign.

The stories about the Deutsche Bank subpoenas, which appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Reuters and Bloomberg on Dec. 5, turned out to be inaccurate. The outlets issued a correction noting the subpoenas were for bank records of Trump associates.

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‘A Partisan And A Zealot’ — Alan Dershowitz Goes After Robert Mueller

Harvard professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz appeared on New York’s AM 970, and he had some harsh words for special counsel Robert Mueller.

“Well, I think Mueller is a zealot,” he said.

“I don’t think he cares whether he hurts Democrats or Republicans. But he’s a partisan and a zealot.”

Dershowitz also said, “Those of us in Boston don’t have such a high regard for Mueller because we remember this story. The government had to pay out tens of millions of dollars because Whitey Bulger, the notorious mass murderer, became a government informer against the mafia.”

He told the story of Whitey Bulger, then said the incident is “regarded in Boston as one of the great scandals of modern judicial history. And Mueller was right at the center of it.

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Impeachment For Rod Rosenstein? Rep. Mark Meadows Says It’s Possible

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein could soon be held in contempt of Congress or even impeached if he fails to produce Russia- and Clinton-related records to Congress, a top Republican lawmaker said Saturday.

“I think that if he does not turn over the documents, that there are a growing number of us on Capitol Hill who believe that someone else needs to do the job. And what happens there is, constitutionally, we have some things that we can do,” North Carolina GOP Rep. Mark Meadows said to Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro in a Saturday night interview.

Meadows was responding to the Justice Department and FBI’s failure to meet Thursday’s deadline to turn over 1.2 million documents related to surveillance warrants granted against President Donald Trump’s former campaign adviser, Carter Page, the Hillary Clinton e-mail probe, and the FBI’s internal report recommending the firing of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

Virginia GOP Rep. and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte subpoenaed the documents on March 22. The agencies missed the April 5 deadline to produce the records, Meadows told Pirro.

Trump sounded off on the matter on Saturday.

“What does the Department of Justice and FBI have to hide?” He asked in a tweet.

“Slow walking — what is going on? BAD!” He continued.

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Brennan Is ‘Doing Putin’s Bidding’ With Anti-Trump Rhetoric, Says Former CIA Station Chief

A former CIA station chief says that former CIA Director John Brennan “is doing Putin’s bidding” by publicly attacking and speculating about President Donald Trump.

In an article at Cipher Brief, a national security website, CIA veteran Daniel Hoffman says that Brennan’s recent remarks play right into Putin’s hands.

“As a former KGB officer and director of its successor, the FSB, Putin’s weapons of choice for this covert campaign are espionage, and influence operations that target our political differences to weaken and divide us,” writes Hoffman.

Hoffman, who spent five years working in Moscow, argues that Putin “knows what makes our society tick” and understands that “the best way to soil our democratic process is to link it with a touch of conspiracy, i.e. to the Kremlin.”

“He is acutely aware of the value to Russia of exacerbating the political tension that grips our country. Putin’s goal is to weaken our democratic institutions, including intelligence community agencies, which are responsible for countering Russia’s espionage onslaught on our country,” he writes.

Hoffman asserts that Brennan’s “cringe worthy” tweets and recent speculation that Putin is blackmailing Trump has added to the political polarization that Putin seeks.

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Congressional Investigators ‘Trying To Get To The Bottom’ Of Brennan’s Role In Russia Investigation

• Brennan played a ‘prominent role’ in Russia probe.
• He briefed Harry Reid about Trump associates’ contacts with Russians.
• Reid believed that Brennan had an ‘ulterior motive.’

A book published in March offered a startling but little-noticed revelation about former CIA Director John Brennan. According to “Russian Roulette,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid believed Brennan was using him as a conduit to publicize possible links between Trump campaign associates and the Russian government.

Brennan’s contacts with Reid — and other activities during the 2016 presidential campaign — are of “significant” interest to congressional investigators trying to figure out the ex-spy’s early role in the Russia investigation, The Daily Caller News Foundation is told.

“By his own account, Brennan played a prominent role in starting the investigation of Trump’s team,” a congressional source with direct knowledge of the House of Representatives’ Russia investigations tells The DCNF.

“Investigators in Congress suspect there are important details about his role that he hasn’t revealed, and we’re trying to get to the bottom of it.”

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Congress And Wasserman Schultz Negligent For Allowing Hacking Suspects Continued Access, Expert Says

• House Democrats put Imran Awan and his family in a position availing access to sensitive files and emails.
• The House eventually banned The Awans, but Rep. Wasserman Schultz kept Imran on payroll and allowed the family continued access to the building.
• An Administration Committee loophole enabled The Awans to slip through policy background checks, as committee members vouched for them.

A publication for IT security professionals says House leaders of both parties were negligent and in violation of basic IT protocol by allowing Imran Awan and his family to continue in their roles as server administrators for four months despite knowing they were suspected of serious misconduct by the House Inspector General.

“The lack of concern and perspective on the potential risks posed by Imran Awan is alarming,” an article in SearchSecurity says. “This case is an example of negligence trumping security and, worse yet, common sense. Awan’s alleged activities and the way many handled themselves, from the hiring to the response in the wake of the investigation, should concern us all.”

Forty-four House Democrats employed the Pakistani-born Imran Awan and his family in a position where they could read all the emails and files of one in five Democratic congressmen.

The author, cybersecurity expert Kevin McDonald of Alvaka Networks, especially faults the judgement of Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who kept Imran on her payroll for an additional six months after House leadership banned him from the network. He also questions her claim the IT aide was somehow providing tech services without ever connecting to the House network.

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DNC Black Caucus Chair: ‘I’m A Former Black Panther’ – ‘We’ve Got To Turn Back To The Revolution’ For Midterms

The Democratic National Committee’s Black Caucus chairwoman discussed being a former Black Panther at a town hall in Detroit on Saturday and explained how Democrats should mimic their grassroots community organizing strategies heading into the 2018 elections.

“I’m a former Black Panther,” Virgie Rollins stated. “When we talked about the movement … it was important for us to make people understand that it was about the movement for us, educating us.”

“We’ve got to be out here in masses this time in the midterms,” she continued. “It’s all about changing the Congress now.”

“They cannot win without black folks and women, so it’s up to us.”

“We’re going to do grassroots organizing in this election,” Rollins closed. “That is so important.”

“We’ve got to turn back to the revolution now, because it’s important. They depend on us.”

Just over halfway through the video, obtained by the Republican National Committee, DNC vice chair Keith Ellison appears to take notice of the videographer before whispering something to a companion on the dais.

He appears to make eye contact with the videographer several times until the clips conclusion.

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44 Dems, Including Wasserman Schultz, Exempted Pakistani IT Aides From Background Checks

Every one of the 44 House Democrats who hired Pakistan-born IT aides who later allegedly made “unauthorized access” to congressional data appears to have chosen to exempt them from background checks, according to congressional documents.

All of them appear to have waived background checks on Imran Awan and his family members, even though the family of server administrators could collectively read all the emails and files of 1 in 5 House Democrats, and despite background checks being recommended for such positions, according to an inspector general’s report. The House security policy requires offices to fill out a form attesting that they’ve initiated background checks, but it also includes a loophole allowing them to simply say that another member vouched for them.

Among the red flags in Abid’s background were a $1.1 million bankruptcy; six lawsuits against him or a company he owned; and at least three misdemeanor convictions including for DUI and driving on a suspended license, according to Virginia court records. Public court records show that Imran and Abid operated a car dealership referred to as CIA that took $100,000 from an Iraqi government official who is a fugitive from U.S. authorities. Numerous members of the family were tied to cryptic LLCs such as New Dawn 2001, operated out of Imran’s residence, Virginia corporation records show. 

Imran was the subject of repeated calls to police by multiple women and had multiple misdemeanor convictions for driving offenses, according to court records.

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