In a 306-page report, special counsel John Durham said the agency’s inquiry had lacked “analytical rigor”.
He concluded the FBI had not possessed “actual evidence” of collusion between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia before launching an inquiry.
The FBI said it had addressed the issues highlighted in the report.
[…]
The report noted significant differences in the way the FBI had handled the Trump investigation when compared with other potentially sensitive inquiries, such as those involving his 2016 electoral rival Hillary Clinton.
Mr Durham noted that Mrs Clinton and others had received “defensive briefings” from the FBI aimed at “those who may be the targets of nefarious activities by foreign powers”. Mr Trump had not.
“The Department [of Justice] and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law,” the report concluded.
The FBI searched troves of communications sucked up by the National Security Agency for information on ‘racially motivated violent extremists’ without a warrant, ignoring previous warnings it was breaking the law.
The FBI’s requests for access to masses of electronic communications harvested by the National Security Agency (NSA) is revealed in a newly declassified report from the United States’ secret surveillance court.
It shows the FBI has continued to perform warrantless searches through the NSA’s most sensitive databases for routine criminal investigations, despite being told by a federal judge in 2018 and 2019 that such a use was an unconstitutional breach of privacy.
[…]
The FBI has traditionally only been allowed to seek data in cases of national security.
But after the bureau began making requests for routine criminal investigations, the FISA courts have been cracking down on how the FBI can access the data of Americans who are caught in these sweeps.
The FBI has been repeatedly blasted by federal judges over its use of the NSA’s vast electronic sweep of emails, texts and other electronic data.
In October 2019, the agency was found to have performed tens of thousands of illegal searches on Americans.
Given what we have come to know about the FBI lately, how much do you trust this agency anymore? Is this real or is it just another effort to rile up people to support Democrats? I give three-to-one odds that we don’t see anything more than a couple of nutters.
Wray said the FBI was receiving a “significant” amount of information that it was pushing out to other law enforcement agencies ahead of the inauguration. Information-sharing is critical before any significant public event like the inauguration, but the issue is receiving particular scrutiny because of signs law enforcement was unprepared for the violent, deadly surge at the Capitol by loyalists of President Donald Trump.
Federal officials have warned local law enforcement agencies that the riot at the Capitol is likely to inspire others with violent intentions.
“We’re looking at individuals who may have an eye towards repeating that same kind of violence that we saw last week,” Wray said, adding that since January 6, the FBI has identified over 200 suspects.
“We know who you are. If you’re out there, an FBI agent is coming to find you,” he added.
I don’t know how much of this praise is legitimate and how much is crafted to put pressure on the FBI and Strzok, but it sure is different from the Strzok testimony. Although Strzok kept trying to hide behind advice from the FBI to keep quiet, it appears that Page did not receive, or is not adhering to, the same advice.
“Lisa Page is a very credible witness and she’s doing her best to help us find the truth,” Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said following Friday’s hearing. “I can tell you, in ways I think she’s been falsely accused about not being willing to cooperate. We’ve learned some evidence today that would suggest she’s been willing to help, in the spirit of transparency. … The last thing anyone wants is to be falsely accused. Her willingness to cooperate today speaks well for her.
“I think there’s significant information that is new, that she has provided,” he added. “Obviously you know I am in favor of getting transcripts out for the American people, so that they can judge for themselves, but certainly I’m not going to share those today until those become public.”
Meadows tweeted following the hearing, “Remarkably, we learned new information today suggesting the DOJ had not notified Lisa Page of Congress’ outstanding interview requests for over 7 months now. The DOJ/FBI appear to be continuing their efforts to keep material facts, and perhaps even witnesses, from Congress.”
After she did not appear on Wednesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan said that “congressional subpoenas for testimony are not optional,” warning Page that the House could move to hold her in contempt if she did not comply.
“She was a part of the mess that we’ve uncovered over at DOJ. She has an obligation to come and testify,” Ryan, R-Wis., emphasized Wednesday during a news conference at the Capitol. “If she wants to come and plead the Fifth, that’s her choice, but a subpoena to testify before Congress is not optional. It’s mandatory.”
Put aside the specific issue, Trump, Gowdy, etc. and consider this in the abstract. What we have here is Congress trying to exercise its Constitutional oversight authority over a law enforcement agency in the Executive Branch, and that agency refusing to cooperate. Abolish ICE? It might be time to abolish the FBI. Which agency has abused the civil rights of more Americans during its existence?
A House Judiciary Committee hearing quickly spiraled into chaos on Thursday when FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok said he couldn’t answer a question related to the Russia investigation because the FBI’s lawyers had instructed him not to, leading the committee’s chairman, Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., to threaten to hold Strzok in contempt.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., asked Strzok — whose anti-Trump text messages led to his removal from the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller — how many interviews he conducted in the first week of the probe.
“Congressman, as you know, counsel for the FBI, based on the special counsel’s equities, has instructed me not to answer questions about the ongoing investigation into Russian attempts to interfere,” Strzok replied.
Gowdy repeated his question and Strzok repeated his answer, infuriating Goodlatte.
“Mr. Strzok, you are under subpoena and are required to answer the question,” Goodlatte said. “Are you objecting to the question?”
The FBI has publicly challenged a push by Republican lawmakers to release a controversial memo which purports to show anti-Trump bias at the agency.
“We have grave concerns about the material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy,” the FBI said in a statement.
[…]
The four-page memo, which was compiled by staffers for the House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, claims that the Department of Justice abused the surveillance programme known as FISA to unfairly target a member of the Trump campaign.
According to lawmakers who have reviewed it, the document purports to show that the agency obtained a warrant to spy on a Trump campaign aide after submitting as evidence the unproven “Russian dossier”.
It is the duty of the oversight committee to provide… you know… oversight. If the FBI was running rogue, then they need to be called out by the people’s representatives. The fact that the FBI is squealing so loud makes me think that the oversight committee is not far from the mark.
Hillary Clinton should not face criminal charges after a review of new emails.
“Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July,” Comey wrote in the new letter to congressional committee chairmen.
It’s pretty amazing how it took years to go through her emails the first time and days to sift through 650,000 of them this time. Technology must have really improved over that time period.
The political organization of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, an influential Democrat with longstanding ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, gave nearly $500,000 to the election campaign of the wife of an official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation who later helped oversee the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email use.
As my parents would say, if you don’t want to be called a weasel, then don’t act like one.
Comey was defending his agency’s actions regarding a federal probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. The investigation drew criticism from Republicans for not recommending charges against the Democratic presidential nominee.
“You can call us wrong, but don’t call us weasels,” he told the House Judiciary Committee. “We are not weasels, we are honest people and we did this in that way.”
Yup. There’s nothing in the world that would have prevented them from releasing the documents on Monday of last week, or Tuesday of this week, or any other day. They made a choice in the interests of what they believed would best help Hillary Clinton.
Washington (CNN)House Speaker Paul Ryan accused the FBI Tuesday of playing politics with the release of details about their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email, citing the bureau’s decision to publicly reveal information at the onset of Labor Day weekend.
“It’s like the most buried time you could ever put out a story. I’m surprised. I can’t believe that they would do what is such a patently political move. It makes them look like political operators versus law enforcement officers,” Ryan said in a radio interview with WRJN’s Glenn Klein.
“The fact that they chose the Friday before Labor Day to put all this out there — it mystifies me as to why they thought that was a smart thing to do.”
