James Comey

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This comes after news broke this week that several jurors in his DC trial were committed leftists. And wicked Judge Amy Berman Jackson has a long biased and corrupt record on the bench.

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amp.dailycaller.com/2020/02/14/roger-stone-seeks-new-trial

Roger Stone Requests A New Trial, Citing Revelations About Anti-Trump Juror

Defense lawyers for Roger Stone requested a new trial for the GOP operative Friday in a secret court filing that, according to a source familiar with the matter, focuses on revelations that came out this week about the foreperson of Stone’s jury.

Revelations about Tomeka Hart, the lead juror at Stone’s trial, prompted the last-ditch effort by Stone’s legal team. He is scheduled to be sentenced in his case on Feb. 20.

Hart, a Democrat who ran for Congress in 2012, came forward on social media Wednesday to defend prosecutors’ handling of Stone’s case. She spoke out after four of the prosecutors withdrew from the case in protest after officials at the Justice Department publicly questioned a nine-year prison sentence recommendation for Stone. (RELATED: Here’s What The Lead Roger Stone Jury Said During Jury Selection Process)

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., recommended Monday that Stone serve between 87 months and 108 months in prison on charges that he obstructed Congress and tampering with a witness as part of the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia probe.

President Donald Trump weighed in on the steep prison recommendation Tuesday and said it was a “miscarriage of justice.”

Later Tuesday, after the four prosecutors quit the case, prosecutors submitting a revised court filing calling for a prison term “far less” than what was initially recommended for Stone.

The source with knowledge of the Stone team’s complaint, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, did not say exactly what issues were raised about Hart. But her anti-Trump social media posts surfaced after she came out to defend the government attorneys.

Hart’s political candidacy was known to prosecutors and Stone’s team. It is unclear why the defense did not try to remove her from the jury pool. It is also unclear if Stone’s lawyers were aware of her social media comments about Trump and the special counsel’s Russia probe.

Hart commented frequently on Twitter about developments in the Russia investigation and often circulated stories that were negative for Trump. She retweeted one post on Jan. 30, 2019 regarding Stone’s arrest five days earlier. The post criticized conservatives who thought that the FBI treated Stone unfairly by raiding his home to arrest him.

Hart also suggested that Trump was racist, referring to him in a tweet on Aug. 19, 2017 as the “#KlanPresident.” In another post on Aug. 3, 2019, months before she joined the Stone jury, Hart, who is black, said that all Trump supporters are racist.

Stone, who is one of Trump’s longest-standing defenders, is often credited with coaxing the former real estate mogul to run for president.

A transcript of the jury selection process shows that Hart said her political views would “absolutely not” affect how she weighed evidence at trial. She also said that she “did not pay that close attention” to the Russia probe.

It is not clear how Hart responded on a written jury questionnaire provided to prospective jurors.

The questionnaire asked prospective jurors if they had negative opinions about Trump or if they had “written or posted anything for public consumption” about the Russia investigation.

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thefederalist.com/2020/02/14/report-fbi-handed-over-classified-information-to-spy-christopher-steele/

Report: FBI Handed Over Classified Information To Spy Christopher Steele
Report: FBI Handed Over Classified Information To Spy Christopher Steele

FEBRUARY 14, 2020 By Madeline Osburn

Inspector General Michael Horowitz discovered that FBI agents shared extensive classified materials with former British spy Christopher Steele, despite knowing the Democratic National Committee was paying Steele and that Hillary Clinton herself was aware of Steele’s research, according to a new report by Eric Felten at RealClearInvestigations.

FBI agents met with Steele in Rome just a month before the 2016 election, where they gave him a “general overview” of Crossfire Hurricane as well as details of the cases against Trump campaign staffers Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn. In addition to the intel, Steele was compensated $15,000 by the FBI for attending the three-hour meeting.


According to Felten, the FBI agent referred to as “Handling Agent 1″ in the Horowitz report is FBI agent Michael Gaeta, who worked on cases fighting organized crime in Russia. Gaeta and Steele met working on the investigation of corruption at international soccer organization FIFA. “Between 2014 and 2016, Steele collected $95,000 from the bureau for his work on the FIFA case and reports on corruption in Russia and Ukraine,” Felten reports. Gaeta became Steele’s go-to for work and began feeding Gaeta information on Trump and Russia connections that would eventually form the “dossier.”

Felten points out that the FBI took extra measures internally to keep Crossfire Hurricane confidential. It was considered both “prohibited,” meaning it could be accessed only by agents officially working on the case, and “close-hold,” meaning information was known only by DOJ and FBI officials. Yet despite the appearance of classified intel, the FBI was eager to meet with Steele, even with the knowledge of his DNC connections.

The FBI had every reason to expect Steele to share information with Glenn Simpson, whose client was the Clinton campaign. Steele claims to have been “candid” with Gaeta about who was writing the checks for his Trump-Russia research. Steele took notes of the July 5 meeting he had with the “handling agent.” According to the Horowitz report, those notes state that Steele told Gaeta “Democratic Party associates” were funding his Fusion GPS work, that the “ultimate client” was the Clinton campaign, and that “the candidate,” as the IG report puts it, “was aware of Steele’s reporting.”

Horowitz’s IG report implies that permission was given to share classified information simply by the presence of the “section chief” at the meeting with Steele. “FBI Security staff told us [the IG’s office] that the Assistant Director for CD [Counterintelligence Division] can authorize the disclosure of classified information,” reads a footnote in the report.

When Felten asked if this was FBI policy, or if there is record of this authorization being granted, Office of the Inspector General spokeswoman Stephanie M. Logan declined to comment.

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www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/02/13/buried_in_ig_report_fbi_gave_steele_highly_protected_secrets_122394.html

Buried in IG Report: How an FBI Team in Rome Gave Steele Highly Guarded Secrets

A month before the 2016 presidential election, the FBI met Christopher Steele in Rome and apparently unlawfully shared with the foreign opposition researcher some of the bureau’s most closely held secrets, according to unpublicized disclosures in the recent Justice Department Inspector General report on abuses of federal surveillance powers.

What’s more, Steele, the former British spy who compiled the “dossier” of conspiracy theories for the Hillary Clinton campaign, was promised $15,000 to attend the briefing by FBI agents eager to maintain his cooperation in their Trump-Russia collusion investigation codenamed Crossfire Hurricane.

That investigation was so closely guarded that only a handful of top officials and agents at the FBI were allowed to know about it.


Michael Gaeta, right, one of the FBI agents who met with Christopher Steele, top photo, in Rome on Oct. 3, 2016. Gaeta is shown later the same month at a university discussion in Rome on transnational organized crime.
John Cabot University
The report by Inspector General Michael Horowitz details how a team of FBI agents in early October 2016 shared with Steele extensive classified materials, just weeks before the bureau cut off ties with him for leaking his own research to the media. The secrets included foreign intelligence information still considered so sensitive that the IG’s report refers to it even now only as coming from a “Friendly Foreign Government.” In fact, this is a reference to Australia. That country’s ambassador to Britain sent the United States a tip about loose talk by junior Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos. The FBI has described that as the predicate for its Trump-Russia investigation.

The IG report also discloses that FBI agents knew Steele worked for Glenn Simpson, whose opposition research firm Fusion GPS was paying Steele to dig up dirt on Trump for the Clinton campaign, and that Steele informed the FBI that the “candidate” – Clinton herself – knew about Steele’s work. Steele did not keep to himself the classified material he had learned from the FBI. Shortly after the Rome meeting, Steele briefed Simpson on what the FBI had disclosed to him.

The FBI’s disclosures to Steele -- described on pages 114-115 and in footnote 513, and supported on pages 386-390 and footnotes 252 and 513, deep in Horowitz’s report – were violations of laws governing the handling of classified material, according to the Inspector General and experts in national security law who spoke with RealClearInvestigations.

The Department of Justice did not respond to questions from RealClearInvestigations. Steele and Simpson did not respond to interview requests placed with their offices.


FBI agents who shared classified secrets with Steele knew he worked for Glenn Simpson, above, whose opposition research firm was paying Steele to dig up dirt on Donald Trump for the Hillary Clinton campaign. Steele passed on to Simpson what the agents gave him.
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
The FBI’s decision to share classified information with a partisan operative and private foreign citizen is all the more curious because the team investigating figures associated with the presidential campaign of Donald Trump made extensive efforts to keep the very fact of Crossfire Hurricane a secret from their own colleagues at the bureau.

At the time, Crossfire Hurricane focused on four figures within Trump’s campaign circle – Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn -- and all four cases were officially labeled “Sensitive Investigative Matters.”

But the cloak of so-called SIM protection was deemed insufficient in this instance, because the investigation wasn’t just about subjects involved in a run-of-the-mill political campaign. FBI witnesses told the Inspector General that because the investigation involved “an ongoing presidential election campaign” the bureau took the further step of designating Crossfire Hurricane a “prohibited” case file. When an investigation is “prohibited,” its files can be accessed only by those who are officially working the case.

The other bureau jargon used by the Crossfire Hurricane team was to call the investigation “close-hold.” The goal, according to the Inspector General, was to “ensure information about the investigation remained known only to the team and FBI and Department [of Justice] officials.”

How, then, did Steele get past such high, razor-wired walls to gain access to this most tightly held information? It didn’t require any high-tech ”Mission Impossible” acrobatics. A team of FBI agents simply gave it to him.


Steele met Michael Gaeta of the FBI in 2010 during a corruption investigation of the international soccer body FIFA, whose president Sepp Blatter, above, was showered by banknotes during a protest at a Zurich press conference in 2015. Later, Steele and Gaeta worked on Trump-Russia.
Ennio Leanza/Keystone via AP, File
Steele was no stranger to the FBI. He almost certainly would have had interactions with the bureau during his 22-year career in British intelligence. He cultivated it as a client when he started his own firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, in 2009.

In the book “Red Card,” an account of a corruption scandal involving soccer’s international governing body, FIFA, investigative reporter Ken Bensinger wrote that Steele “was always on the lookout for new business. The bureau, the retired spy knew, was known to be a gold-plated client.”

It was in the context of the FIFA investigation that Steele met FBI agent Michael Gaeta in 2010. Gaeta was in charge of a team fighting Russian organized crime. When the bureau’s reliance on the Steele dossier first became public in 2017, press reports claimed that Steele’s contributions to the soccer probe proved he was reliable. However, the IG report summarizes the views of a case agent and a prosecutor who said, “Steele did not have any role in the [FIFA] investigation itself, he did not provide court testimony, and his information did not appear in any indictments, search warrants, or other court filings.”

Nonetheless, between 2014 and 2016, Steele collected $95,000 from the bureau for his work on the FIFA case and reports on corruption in Russia and Ukraine.

His paymaster was Gaeta, referred to in the Horowitz report as “Handling Agent 1.” So when Steele and Simpson decided to approach the FBI to promote a conspiracy theory about Trump and Russia, Gaeta was the natural contact. Steele met with Gaeta in London on July 5, 2016 and presented him with a tantalizing preview of the “dossier.” This first installment included the lurid “pee tape” story – the salacious rumor that Trump had paid Russian prostitutes to urinate on a Moscow hotel bed the Obamas had slept on.

By September Steele had given the FBI the bulk of his Trump-Russia reports. That led to the meeting in Rome on October 3 between Steele and several agents from the Crossfire Hurricane team, as the IG report describes them: “Case Agent 2,” a “Supervisory Intel Analyst,” and an “Acting Section Chief,” together with Gaeta.

Much of the public reporting regarding this meeting has focused on the information Steele shared with the FBI – and the many reasons agents should have doubted its credibility. But largely neglected has been the opposite side of the equation – what the FBI told Steele. The Inspector General reports that the bureau revealed to him much of the highly classified information that it had gathered regarding alleged Trump-Russia links.

The FBI had every reason to expect Steele to share information with Glenn Simpson, whose client was the Clinton campaign. Steele claims to have been “candid” with Gaeta about who was writing the checks for his Trump-Russia research. Steele took notes of the July 5 meeting he had with the “handling agent.” According to the Horowitz report, those notes state that Steele told Gaeta "Democratic Party associates" were funding his Fusion GPS work, that the "ultimate client" was the Clinton campaign, and that "the candidate," as the IG report puts it, “was aware of Steele's reporting.”

But by the fall, the Crossfire Hurricane team was so eager to lock in access to Steele’s ongoing “reporting” that they were willing to offer the former spy inducements. Steele said the FBI didn’t want him to share his election intelligence with other U.S. government agencies or with any of his private clients except for Fusion GPS. Gaeta said it was a reasonable request given that Steele "was now being offered compensation to go forward from the United States government" -- compensation such as the $15,000 he had been told he would be paid for attending the meeting in Rome.

More significantly, Steele received highly classified information.


"Crime in Progress," the Trump-Russia book Simpson co-authored, says “Steele briefed him on what had happened at the meeting” in Rome.
Penguin Random House
In a meeting that lasted nearly three hours, according to the IG report, “Case Agent 2” gave Steele a “general overview” of Crossfire Hurricane as well as more granular details of the cases being developed against Page, Papadopoulos, Manafort, and Flynn. All of that information – especially a “Friendly Foreign Government's” communication with Washington – is classified, the IG report states. This alarmed Gaeta, who deemed it “peculiar” to give Steele an overview of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, let alone “providing names of persons related to the investigation.” The Supervisory Intel Analyst was also alarmed, according to the IG report, and “notified his supervisor about his concern” once back in Washington.

It didn’t take long for those secrets to get passed on to Simpson. “Crime in Progress,” Simpson’s recent book about the Trump-Russia affair, co-authored with Fusion co-founder Peter Fritsch, relates that “Steele briefed him on what had happened at the meeting” in Rome, including the FBI's disclosure that it was investigating Papadopoulos.

In footnote 513, the IG report states investigators “examined whether the FBI disclosed classified information to Steele.” The Inspector General “determined that Case Agent 2 did so when he discussed information with Steele that the FBI received from the FFG, and that he did not have prior authorization to make the disclosure.”

This is no small matter. “Sharing classified information with anyone not authorized to receive it is a crime,” says Sean Bigley, an attorney specializing in national security law. “But sharing classified information with a non-U.S. citizen not authorized to receive it is also the very definition of harm to national security.”



The Justice Inspector General's report found unauthorized disclosures and gave explanations for them.
Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General

Instead of recommending Case Agent 2 for any prosecution or punishment, the IG report offers possible explanations for the agent’s behavior. One is that the agent had been “given significant latitude from his supervisors to frame his discussions with Steele.” Another is that the “Case Agent believed he had authorization to discuss classified information with Steele based on prior discussion with his supervisors.” But the report suggests no effort by the IG’s office to determine how and why the agent could have believed that. Another explanation offered is that a Counterintelligence Division Section Chief “was present when Case Agent 2 made the disclosure,” the Horowitz report states, “and the CD Section Chief did not voice objection to it at the time or afterward.”

The Inspector General's office treats the section chief’s presence as tacit permission for Case Agent 2 to disclose classified information. But this rationale also cuts the other way: If the disclosure of highly classified material was not just the careless act of a rogue agent, then was it FBI policy? If so, who made that decision?

An earlier footnote, number 252, states, “FBI Security staff told us [the IG’s office] that the Assistant Director for CD [Counterintelligence Division] can authorize the disclosure of classified information.” Is there a record this authorization was granted? RealClearInvestigations provided written questions to the Inspector General's office. RCI asked whether the IG had identified “any law, rule, or regulations giving the Asst. Director the power to authorize disclosure” of classified material?

Office of the Inspector General spokesperson Stephanie M. Logan declined to comment.

For there to be declassification or authorization to share classified material, “typically there would have to be a record,” says Robert Eatinger, former Senior Deputy General Counsel at the CIA. The IG did not report finding any such record.

Even if there were paperwork, the FBI may not be in a position to declassify anything and everything it chooses. “The FBI assumes they have a lot more authority than they do,” says Eatinger. For example, if a given piece of information is classified by the CIA, the FBI does not have authority unilaterally to declassify it.


The FBI team had reason to believe Steele’s other clients included the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, right, who has close ties to President Vladimir Putin, left.
Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File

The IG report raises the possibility that the FBI might be excused given the need to manage its Confidential Human Sources. After all, if a CHS is going to look for information on the targets of an investigation, he needs to know who the targets are. But even if there were some automatic security clearance for anyone who acts as a CHS, that wouldn’t explain away the breach. The IG report concludes that, from Steele’s initial July 2016 meeting with his handling agent, “it was clear that Steele was operating as a businessperson working on behalf of a client of his firm, rather than as a CHS for the FBI.” Days before the presidential election, the bureau made it official that Steele was not a CHS. He was “closed” as a source on Nov. 1, 2016, after the FBI learned he had been sharing his own research with the press.

Beyond Steele’s connections to Simpson and Clinton, the Crossfire Hurricane team should have had other concerns about sharing classified information regarding their Trump-Russia probe with him. They had reason to believe that Steele’s other clients included the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who has close ties to President Vladimir Putin.

To appreciate the magnitude of the FBI’s breach of the rules governing classified materials, consider how the bureau’s former Director James Comey and former General Counsel James Baker have used classification to limit what Michael Horowitz was able to ask them. Comey and Baker “chose not to request that their security clearances be reinstated for their OIG interviews,” the Inspector General writes. “Therefore, we were unable to provide classified information or documents to them during their interviews to develop their testimony, or to assist their recollections of relevant events.”

The idea that the FBI is gratuitously sharing classified information with a foreign informant is rather extraordinary, says lawyer Bigley. “If one of my clients did this, they would be stripped of their security clearance, out of a job, and probably facing indictment.”

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Kieran Ramsey, the Legal Attache in the US Embassy in Rome is identified in the Senate request. Ramsey sent an email to Italian investigators in April 2016 noting that Occhionero’s emails were located in Germany:

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thefederalist.com/2020/02/15/ukrainian-president-zelensky-calls-impeachment-a-tv-soap-opera/

Ukrainian President Zelensky Calls Impeachment A TV Soap Opera
In a rebuke to Democrats, the Ukrainian president dismissed the impeachment of Trump as a television soap opera.

FEBRUARY 15, 2020 By David Marcus

In a wide-ranging interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky referred to the impeachment of President Donald Trump as a television series, specifically citing the soap operas “Santa Barbara” and “Dallas.” Throwing cold water on what Democrats alleged to be a pressure campaign on Zelensky and his government, the Ukrainian president also said he looks forward to his next conversation with Trump and hopes to visit the White House.

Zelensky did bristle when asked about corruption in Ukraine, asking President Trump to stop referring to his country as one of the most corrupt in the world. But he did acknowledge that in the past, Ukraine has suffered under great government corruption. He promised his administration is changing that and operating openly and honestly.


The interview severely undermines the entire premise of the Trump impeachment effort. Why on earth would Zelensky look forward to further conversations with Trump if the latter was, in Democrats’ words, extorting him in their July 25 phone call?

According to the Democrats and their allies in the media, Zelensky has been lying when he says he felt no pressure from President Trump to launch investigations into the energy company Burisma tied to Joe Biden’s son Hunter. The entire impeachment effort was based on the notion that Trump was dangling military aid to Ukraine until such an investigation was announced. But no investigation was announced, and the aid flowed before its deadline.

Further, while the Obama administration sat on its hands when Russia invaded Ukraine and only managed to send non-lethal aid such as blankets, the Trump administration has given significant lethal aid in an effort to thwart Russia’s military advances. Clearly, Zelensky is interested in further cultivating this relationship with Trump and the United States.

Aside from the fact that Zelensky, a former comedian, should upgrade his cable package, as he’s watching TV shows from the early 1980s, his dismissive view of the impeachment debacle is telling. One gets the sense from his remarks that he feels Democrats have been using him and his country to further attacks on Trump’s presidency when those same Democrats should be focused on helping his country defend itself from Russian aggression.

Just over a week after Trump’s acquittal in the Senate, this interview further cements the fact that impeachment was a cynical political ploy, not a serious investigation into an alleged abuse of power in which the person allegedly being bribed didn’t even know any bribery was happening.

The soap opera is over, and it is obvious Zelensky wants no reboot of it. Nobody shot JR. What the Ukrainian president wants and what we should all want is to put this sham impeachment behind us and to move forward with a meaningful and productive relationship with our ally. Hopefully now, that is exactly what will happen.

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On Friday Eric Felton at Real Clear Investigations observed: “Buried in IG Report: How an FBI Team in Rome Gave Steele Highly Guarded Secrets.”

Felton points to a meeting in Rome a month before the 2016 election:

www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/02/13/buried_in_ig_report_fbi_gave_steele_highly_protected_secrets_122394.html

A month before the 2016 presidential election, the FBI met Christopher Steele in Rome and apparently unlawfully shared with the foreign opposition researcher some of the bureau’s most closely held secrets, according to unpublicized disclosures in the recent Justice Department Inspector General report on abuses of federal surveillance powers.

What’s more, Steele, the former British spy who compiled the “dossier” of conspiracy theories for the Hillary Clinton campaign, was promised $15,000 to attend the briefing by FBI agents eager to maintain his cooperation in their Trump-Russia collusion investigation codenamed Crossfire Hurricane.

That investigation was so closely guarded that only a handful of top officials and agents at the FBI were allowed to know about it.

The report by Inspector General Michael Horowitz details how a team of FBI agents in early October 2016 shared with Steele extensive classified materials, just weeks before the bureau cut off ties with him for leaking his own research to the media. The secrets included foreign intelligence information still considered so sensitive that the IG’s report refers to it even now only as coming from a “Friendly Foreign Government.” In fact, this is a reference to Australia. That country’s ambassador to Britain sent the United States a tip about loose talk by junior Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos. The FBI has described that as the predicate for its Trump-Russia investigation.
Read more1/6

The IG report also discloses that FBI agents knew Steele worked for Glenn Simpson, whose opposition research firm Fusion GPS was paying Steele to dig up dirt on Trump for the Clinton campaign, and that Steele informed the FBI that the “candidate” – Clinton herself – knew about Steele’s work.

According to Lee Smith, the information sharing between the Clinton campaign and the DOJ-FBI was much more extensive than previously reported.



Author Lee Smith: We have known for a long time, of course, that Steele and the Clinton Campaign was providing information to the FBI. It now appears the FBI was giving information to the Clinton campaign, as well. Was that in order to direct the FISA so that they could obtain the spy warrant?… People involved who were sharing this information with Steele including Peter Strzok and Bill Priestap.

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This didn't age well, (especially given the former Liberal hero Avenatti is now going to prison) :

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www.dailywire.com/news/watch-a-look-back-at-all-the-media-praise-for-michael-avenatti

WATCH: A Look Back At All The Media Praise For Michael Avenatti

Celebrity attorney Michael Avenatti was found guilty Friday on three counts of attempting to extort $25 million from Nike.


Avenatti rose to prominence years ago when he worked as the attorney for Stormy Daniels, a porn star who sued President Donald Trump over an alleged affair. Left-wing media outlets celebrated Avenatti and pumped him up for a potential presidential run against Trump in 2020. With Avenatti’s conviction in New York, it’s time to look back at all the media outlets who bought the attorney’s claims over the years.

The Washington Free Beacon put together a supercut of various media personalities fawning over Avenatti. The video opens with Bill Maher calling Avenatti “Trump’s worst nightmare” to roaring applause. Later, “The View” host Joy Behar tells Avenatti he’s “out saving the country.” Another CNN contributor called him the “savior of the republic,” while Maher is again shown calling the disgraced attorney “a folk hero.”

The video has an entire segment showing pundits giddy over the possibility that Avenatti might “take down Donald Trump,” as Maher put it. He’s called a “beast.” MSBNC host Lawrence O’Donnell says Trump “is afraid to mention [Avenatti’s] name” and is “terrified” of him. Late night host Stephen Colbert called him the “existential threat to the Trump presidency.”

WATCH:

As The Daily Wire reported Friday, Avenatti faces up to 42 years in prison for attempting to extort Nike. While he was convicted in New York, the disgraced attorney still faces charges of stealing money from clients in Los Angeles, California. He has been accused of stealing Stormy Daniels’ book advance and millions from a mentally ill paraplegic man whom Avenatti represented. The man, Geoffrey Ernest Johnson, won a $4 million settlement, which was wired to Avenatti, who then kept it from Johnson for years. If Avenatti is also convicted in California, he would face up to 335 years in prison for his crimes.

In addition to his legal troubles in New York and California, Avenatti was also referred for criminal investigation to the Department of Justice after he represented a woman, Julie Swetnick, who made obviously false allegations against then-Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh.


Kavanaugh had been accused by Christine Blasey Ford of allegedly groping her when the two were in high school. Though there were serious questions with Ford’s claims and the motivation behind them, Democrats and their media counterparts presented her accusations as “credible” and she was even allowed to testify before the senate. While the media circus surrounding Kavanaugh was taking place, NBC hosted an interview with Swetnick, who was the third woman to claim Kavanaugh sexually assaulted women. Swetnick claimed in a sworn affidavit that Kavanaugh helped spike punch and lead gang rape parties while he was a high school student. The ludicrous claims didn’t stop NBC from interviewing her, where she walked back her most salacious claims. It later turned out NBC was well aware of the issues with her claims, but put her on the air anyway as part of its vendetta against Trump and Republicans.

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dailycaller.com/2020/02/15/cnn-nancy-pelosi-trump-acquitted/

CNN Anchor Tells Nancy Pelosi That Trump Was Acquitted — She Interrupts, Claims He Wasn’t



Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed President Donald Trump wasn’t really acquitted in the impeachment trial during an interview that aired this week with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

“What about, though, the fact that the president seems liberated, and this is about democratic politics so I’m not asking you to criticize here, but he was acquitted, his poll ratings are high …” Amanpour said.


“He was not … there was no …” Pelosi interrupted.

“You can’t have an acquittal unless you have a trial, and you can’t have a trial unless you have witnesses and documents. So he can say he’s acquitted, and the headlines can say ‘acquitted,’ but he’s impeached forever, branded with that, and not vindicated,” Pelosi continued.

“And even the senators were saying, ‘yes, it wasn’t right,’ but they didn’t have the courage to act upon that.”

Democrats have made this claim before. Earlier this month, the House managers in the impeachment trial claimed that Trump was not truly acquitted, saying that Trump didn’t get a “fair trial.” (RELATED: Trump Reveals Melania’s Cold Response To Nancy Pelosi’s Impeachment Speech)


The Senate indeed did vote to acquit Trump in the impeachment trial, with every Republican but one, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, voting against the charge of abuse of power, and all Republicans including Romney voting against the charge of obstruction.

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Trey Gowdy: He escapes indictment from that narrow fact pattern but that has nothing to do with FISA or the initiation of Russia and any other potential misconduct that Andrew McCabe may have engaged in… He certainly is someone John Durham would want to talk to.

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Maria Bartiromo: Very quickly before you go, I got to ask you about this exculpatory evidence you have seen. You broke the news on this program over a year ago that there was a transcript of a conversation between George Papadopoulos, I said that not you, and an informant where basically George Papadopoulos said to the guy, “No, I would never do that. That’s treason!” what else do we need to know about that exculpatory piece of evidence?

Trey Gowdy: Well, I want you to imagine this hypothetically, Maria. Imagine that you’re accused of a crime and this is your response. Number one, I didn’t do it. So, factually that’s pretty important. I didn’t to it. Number two, I would never do that because it is a crime for which you can be put to death and it is a crime against a country that I love. If that’s your response to an accusation that you engaged in improper conduct that is textbook exculpatory evidence. You really can’t draw off a piece of exculpatory evidence than I didn’t do it, I would never do it, it’s a crime to do it. So if that happened then the court needed to know about it.

Maria Bartiromo: This is a little more information that you gave us than that that transcript that you have to believe John Durham is looking at and everyone is looking at in charge because it was not given to the FISA Court to get those warrants. They say two of those four warrants were unlawful. I’m putting my money on more than two were unlawful.

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dailycaller.com/2020/02/16/cnn-msnbc-analysts-petition-resign-barr/

Eight legal analysts who work for CNN and MSNBC or appear frequently on the networks signed a petition Sunday calling on Attorney General William Barr to resign over his handling of Roger Stone’s case.

CNN analysts and former federal prosecutors Elie Honig and Renato Mariotti signed the petition, which has more than 1,140 signatures.


MSNBC analysts Paul Butler, Frank Figliuzzi, Matthew Miller and Jill Wine-Banks also signed the document, which was compiled by Protect Democracy, a nonprofit group staunchly opposed to President Donald Trump.

Nick Akerman, a former Watergate prosecutor who appears frequently on MSNBC, and Mimi Rocah, a former prosecutor who recently left MSNBC to run for a district attorney position, also signed the petition.

The petitioners are upset that Barr directed the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., to revise a court filing that recommended that Stone, a long time Trump confidante, serve between 87 months and 108 months in prison on charges that he obstructed a congressional investigation and tampered with a witness.

Prosecutors said in a revised filing on Feb. 11 that Stone deserved a “substantial” prison sentence, but one that was “far less” than the 87-108 months that was initially recommended. (RELATED: DOJ Revises Stone Sentencing Recommendation)


Trump weighed in on the initial filing and called the recommendation “disgraceful” and a “miscarriage of justice.” Barr insisted in an interview on Feb. 13 that he did not speak with Trump about Stone’s case. He told ABC News that he had problems with prosecutors’ initial recommendation, because he and other Justice Department officials believed that a nine-year prison sentence was “very excessive” for Stone’s case.

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So, it’s President Trump’s fault that CNN, etc were all happy, etc with Avenatti? Talk about revisionist history:

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www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/top-mueller-prosecutor-doj-starting-new-investigation-into-james-comey-andrew-mccabe-and-peter-strzok

One of Robert Mueller’s former top prosecutors said the outside prosecutor picked to review the case against retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn is a ruse to investigate President Trump’s perceived enemies.

Andrew Weissmann, a former Justice Department official who was known as Mueller’s “pit bull” during the Russia investigation, said the Justice Department swapped out the “loser case” of Andrew McCabe, who escaped criminal charges on Friday for allegedly lying to investigators about authorizing media disclosures, for a fresh one targeting top former FBI officials, including McCabe, led by Jeffrey Jensen, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri.

“All they did was swapped out a loser case for starting an investigation that is going to be of Comey, McCabe, Pete Strzok,” Weissmann told MSNBC host Chuck Todd.

All three officials were involved in the investigation into the Trump 2016 campaign’s alleged ties to Russia, which Trump and his allies have called a “witch hunt.” Mueller, who took over the inquiry after FBI Director James Comey was fired in May 2017, found no criminal conspiracy when the investigation ended last year.

Attorney General William Barr picked Jensen, the top federal prosecutor in St. Louis, to work alongside the Flynn case’s lead prosecutor Brandon Van Grack one month after the former Trump national security adviser filed to withdraw his guilty plea in Mueller’s investigation.

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amp.dailycaller.com/2020/02/16/media-confront-failures-covering-michael-avenatti

Media Struggles To Confront Their Failures In Covering Michael Avenatti

The media, who spent substantial time covering celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti, has struggled to confront their failures following his conviction Friday.
CNN anchors and other journalists took various approaches, with some even putting the blame on President Donald Trump.
CNN anchor Brian Stelter simply asked if he was “stupid” for the network’s coverage of Avenatti, whereas The Daily Beast’s Sam Stein took full responsibility and apologized.
Media personalities who spent years bolstering celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti were forced to address his Friday conviction and struggled to admit their failures in how they covered him.

Multiple journalists spoke over the weekend about how they covered Avenatti. Outlets such as CNN, MSNBC and ABC gave him a platform with some even suggesting that he could take down President Donald Trump. Avenatti was convicted Friday on three charges related to his scheme to extort over $20 million from the sportswear and apparel company Nike.

CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin admitted on Feb. 14, the same day of Avenatti’s conviction, that he felt tricked because he took the celebrity lawyer so seriously over the years. Avenatti rose to notoriety for being porn star Stormy Daniels’ lawyer in a case against Trump.

“Frankly, you know, I feel kind of snookered, because I took him seriously,” Toobin said, recalling the many times Avenatti was invited onto CNN. (RELATED: Media Praised Michael Avenatti, Now A Convicted Felon, As The Man Who Could Take Down Trump)

.......

Daily Beast:

CNN:

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/02/17/revealed-fbi-set-up-briefing-with-trump-flynn-and-documented-their-thoughts-for-crossfire-hurricane-operation/

Revealed: FBI Used ‘Briefing’ with Trump, Flynn to Gather Evidence for Crossfire Hurricane Operation

The FBI under James Comey underhandedly sent a senior member of the team investigating alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign to conduct a standard official FBI security briefing for presidential campaigns with then-candidate Donald Trump and his then national security advisor, Michael T. Flynn.

Unbeknownst to both Trump and Flynn, that FBI investigator memorialized that briefing, which included exchanges with Flynn and Trump, in an official document that was added to the Crossfire Hurricane case file probing the Trump campaign over unsubstantiated and ultimately discredited charges of Russian collusion.
The FBI file documenting the August 2016 briefing describes two questions asked by candidate Trump as well as comments from Trump and Flynn and exchanges with the briefer from the FBI who was not identified to either Trump or Flynn during the briefing as working on the Crossfire Hurricane team probing Flynn and other members of the Trump campaign.
James A. Baker, the former FBI general counsel, conceded that the briefer “was there on the off chance that somebody said something that might be useful.”
This means the FBI’s controversial Crossfire Hurricane probe team investigating members of the Trump campaign not only directly interfaced with Trump and Flynn without telling them but also recorded their comments in the official case file. Flynn at the time was already a target of the FBI probe.
Moreover, the FBI investigator who conducted the briefing says that he used the occasion as an opportunity to study Flynn’s behavior and mannerisms just in case the FBI needed to eventually conduct a subject interview of Flynn. Indeed, the same investigator himself was the FBI agent who conducted an in-person FBI interview with Flynn on January 24, 2017 in connection with the FBI’s investigation of Flynn.

All those details and more were contained deep inside the Justice Department’s previously released 476-page Inspector General report on the FBI’s Russia collusion investigation.

The details may take on renewed significant amid the reported decision by Attorney General William P. Barr to assigned an outside prosecutor to scrutinize the case against Flynn.

The briefing in question was a standard FBI unclassified “counterintelligence awareness” briefing routinely given to the transition teams for presidential candidates during an election cycle. The briefings were provided to both the Trump and Clinton campaigns. The briefing for Trump and his selected advisors, including Flynn, took place on August 17, 2016.

The FBI investigator told the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) that disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok was mostly responsible for helping him prepare the briefing with Trump and Flynn.

The investigator said he prepared himself for facing Trump and Flynn in a series of mock briefings attended by both Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page, the infamous texting duo who were previously reportedly romantically involved.

The IG report says that Andrew McCabe, who served under Comey as the FBI’s deputy director, “acknowledged that it was possible he was part of a conversation about whether SSA 1 should handle the briefing because of his involvement with Crossfire Hurricane, but said he could not recall any such conversation.”
SSA 1 refers to the unnamed senior member of the Crossfire Hurricane team who conducted the sneaky briefing.

While McCabe claims he couldn’t recall participating in any discussions about using Crossfire Hurricane member SSA 1 to brief the unsuspecting Trump and Flynn, Baker, the former FBI general counsel, sung a different tune.

Baker recalled that discussions about using SSA 1 as the FBI briefer did occur at higher levels within the FBI and those discussions included himself, McCabe, Strzok and possibly Lisa Page. Also involved in those discussions was the FBI’s top counterintelligence agent, Bill Priestap, Baker recalled.
SSA 1 told the OIG that the briefing provided him “the opportunity to gain assessment and possibly have some level of familiarity with [Flynn]. So, should we get to the point where we need to do a subject interview…I would have that to fall back on.”

The SSA 1 agent was asked to explain what he meant by “assessment,” and he responded:

[Flynn’s] overall mannerisms. That overall mannerisms and then also if there was anything specific to Russia, or anything specific to our investigation that was mentioned by him, or quite frankly we had an …investigation, right. And any of the other two individuals in the room, if they, any kind of admission, or overhear, whatever it was, I was there to record that.

Baker, meanwhile, told the OIG that he didn’t raise any concerns about using SSA 1 as the briefer because “[h]e was not there to induce anybody to say anything…. He was not there to do an undercover operation or … elicit some type of statement or testimony …. He was there on the off chance that somebody said something that might be useful.”

Baker further conceded that the benefit of placing SSA 1 at the briefing was to see if anyone at the briefing said anything of relevance to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane probe of alleged collusion.

Baker stated:
f somebody said something, you want someone in the room who knew enough about the investigation that they would be able to understand the significance of something, or some type of statement, whereas … a regular briefer who didn’t know anything about that might just let it go, and it might not even register with them. And so … that was the reason to have [SSA 1] there.

Baker’s reference to “somebody” clearly meant anyone at the briefing, perhaps even Trump himself.

The IG report documents how the conversation between SSA 1, Trump and Flynn was memorialized in an Electronic Communication (EC) and filed away inside the Crossfire Hurricane file.

The report states that “woven into the briefing summary are questions posed to SSA 1 by Trump and Flynn, and SSA l’s responses, as well as comments made by Trump and Flynn.” Earlier the report referenced two questions from Trump that was documented in the file.

The language in the IG report indicated that the office was taken aback by the use of SSA 1 to brief Trump and Flynn.
It stated:

We asked Baker whether he recalled any discussion about the potential chilling effect on, and the FBI’s participation in, future presidential transition briefings if the FBI’s use of SSA 1 in this manner became known. Baker told us that he did not recall that issue being discussed, and added that the use of SSA 1 was focused on the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation and Russian activities, including any directed at the Trump campaign; it was not the intention to collect any “political intelligence about campaign strategy, about campaign personalities, or anything that could be used in any political way.”

A few paragraphs earlier, the report stated:

We asked SSA 1 whether he was aware of any discussions within the FBI about the appropriateness of the FBI using an ODNI strategic intelligence briefing for a presidential candidate, organized by the [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] as part of the presidential transition process, as an opportunity to gather potentially relevant investigative information about or from a staff member who is the subject of an FBI investigation.

SSA 1 responded that he did not recall if there were any such discussions, but that if there were, they would have occurred at levels above him. He also told us that he did not personally have any concerns with the plan.

This episode isn’t the only time an FBI member surreptitiously met with Trump without telling him that he was being investigated and then proceeded to memorialize the conversation in the case file investigating the Trump campaign.

As Breitbart News first reported, a different IG report provided new context to Comey’s infamous classified briefing to then President-elect Donald Trump about “salacious” material inside the anti-Trump dossier.

That IG report relates that prior to the briefing, FBI members on Comey’s team discussed the need to memorialize the exchanges between Comey and Trump during the private January 6, 2017 briefing in Trump Tower just in case Trump made statements relevant to the agency’s Russia probe. In other words, they plotted to stealthily use statements Trump said to Comey in a private briefing to inform their Russia collusion investigation.

The IG further relates that Comey went on to do just that. He had a laptop waiting for him in the car, where he immediately began memorializing the private talk. He also immediately provided a “quick download” of the Trump briefing to members of the FBI’s Russia collusion team via a secured video conference.

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thefederalist.com/2020/02/17/source-democrat-senator-held-secret-meeting-in-munich-with-iranian-foreign-minister-zarif/

Source: Democrat Senator Held Secret Meeting In Munich With Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif
FEBRUARY 17, 2020 By Mollie Hemingway
Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and other Democratic senators had a secret meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the Munich Security Conference last week, according to a source briefed by the French delegation to the conference. Murphy’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment by press time.

Such a meeting would mean Murphy had done the type of secret coordination with foreign leaders to potentially undermine the U.S. government that he accused Trump officials of doing as they prepared for Trump’s administration. In February 2017, Murphy demanded investigations of National Security Advisor Mike Flynn because he had a phone call with his counterpart-to-be in Russia.


“Any effort to undermine our nation’s foreign policy – even during a transition period – may be illegal and must be taken seriously,” Murphy said in 2017 after anonymous leaks of Flynn’s phone call with Russian ambassador Sergey Kisylak were published. He also strongly criticized the open letter some Republican senators sent Iranian leaders during the Obama administration’s campaign for a nuclear agreement.

However, Murphy has previously defended rogue meetings if they’re done by Democrats such as former Secretary of State John Kerry.

“Unless it was authorized by the president or secretary of state, conducting independent foreign policy sends mixed signals to our adversaries,” said Christian Whiton, former State Department senior advisor in the Trump and George W. Bush administrations. “It seems very unpalatable. If we want to talk to Iranians, they know how to reach us and they don’t need to go through an intermediary.”

A State Department official who spoke on background said that the State Department was not aware of any side meetings with Iranian officials that Murphy was engaged in.

The Munich Security Conference, an annual forum on international security policy, welcomes hundreds of world leaders each February. This year’s conference featured robust debate on the United States’ maximum pressure policy against Iran, China’s handling of the coronavirus and technology concerns, and the European alliance with the United States. Other Democrat senators at the conference included Sens. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. Former Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts also attended.

Both Murphy and Zarif spoke publicly during a two-hour session on Middle East policy, with Murphy and Zarif both fiercely criticizing U.S. policy.

President Donald Trump has reoriented American policy in the Middle East away from President Barack Obama’s friendly posture toward Iran. He departed from Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a nuclear arrangement with the Republic of Iran that was not ratified by the United States Senate.

Trump has exerted instead a “maximum pressure” campaign against the regime, with 12 demands on Iran before a new deal is reached. Those demands include a full account of its nuclear program, ending its proliferation of ballistic missiles, releasing all U.S. citizens held on spurious charges, ending support to terrorist groups, withdrawal of forces in Syria, and cessation of its threatening behavior against its neighbors.

The “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions has devastated the Iranian economy, which is in recession and faces rising inflation. It has made it difficult for Iran to pay foreign fighters engaged in supported terror operations. Iranians have taken to the streets in protest.

Iran recently killed an American contractor in Iraq and the United States killed Iranian general Qassim Suleimani, a top Iranian leader who was responsible for the killing and maiming of thousands of U.S. soldiers. Iran’s retaliatory strike for that killing resulted in no U.S. deaths, but the country did shoot down a Ukrainian passenger plane then lied about it for days.

At the conference, Zarif said official retaliation for the killing of Suleimani had ended, although he suggested independent attacks from others in the country might follow.

Murphy is a frequent speaker at the National Iranian American Council, a lobbying group with alleged links to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Republican Sens. Mike Braun of Indiana, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, and Ted Cruz of Texas recently asked the Department of Justice for potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

They wrote that the influential lobbying group “purports to improve understanding between American and Iranian people but in reality seems to spread propaganda and lobby on behalf of the Iranian government.” Evidence indicates that evidence Zarif himself was involved in founding the group

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www.dailywire.com/news/dershowitz-i-have-proof-obama-ordered-fbi-investigation-at-request-of-george-soros

Dershowitz: I Have Proof Obama Ordered FBI Investigation At Request Of George Soros

Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz revealed in an interview on Sunday that he has proof that former Democrat President Barack Obama ordered the FBI to investigate someone after far-left billionaire George Soros asked for the investigation.

Dershowitz’s remarks come after critics have attacked President Donald Trump for tweeting about matters related to the Department of Justice, which led to Attorney General William Barr publicly asking the president to stop last week.


“There was a lot of White House control of the Justice Department during the Kennedy administration and I don’t think we saw very many liberal professors arguing against that,” Dershowitz told Breitbart News. “I have some information as well about the Obama administration – which will be disclosed in a lawsuit at some point, but I’m not prepared to disclose it now – about how President Obama personally asked the FBI to investigate somebody on behalf of George Soros, who was a close ally of his.”

“We’ve seen this kind of White House influence on the Justice Department virtually in every Justice Department,” Dershowitz continued. “The difference this president is much more overt about it, he tweets about it. President Obama whispered to the Justice Department about it.”

“You said that George Soros asked Barack Obama to have his Justice Department investigate somebody?” Breitbart News pressed.


“That’s going to come out in a lawsuit in the near future, yeah,” Dershowitz responded. “I have in my possession the actual 302 form which documents this issue and it will at the right time come out, but I’m not free to disclose it now because it’s a case that’s not yet been filed.”

WATCH

Transcript:

Alan Dershowitz: There was a lot of White House control of the Justice Department during the Kennedy administration and I don’t think we saw very many liberal professors arguing against that. I have some information as well about the Obama administration – which will be disclosed in a lawsuit at some point, but I’m not prepared to disclose it now – about how President Obama personally asked the FBI to investigate somebody on behalf of George Soros, who was a close ally of his. We’ve seen this kind of White House influence on the Justice Department virtually in every Justice Department. The difference this president is much more overt about it, he tweets about it. President Obama whispered to the Justice Department about it and I don’t think these thousand former Justice Department officials would pass the shoe on the other foot test. Maybe some of them would but a good many of them wouldn’t and let’s be very clear about the constitutionality, the president could make a decision to really control the Justice Department, he could decide who to prosecute, who not to prosecute. He shouldn’t do it, it hasn’t been done since Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson did do it, we’ve seen this throughout our history.

Breitbart News: You said that George Soros asked Barack Obama to have his Justice Department investigate somebody?

Dershowitz: That’s going to come out in a lawsuit in the near future, yeah. That is not unusual, people whisper to presidents all the time, presidents whisper to Justice Department all the time, it’s very common, it’s wrong whoever does it, but it’s common and we shouldn’t think that it’s unique to any particular president. I have in my possession the actual 302 form which documents this issue and it will at the right time come out, but I’m not free to disclose it now because it’s a case that’s not yet been filed.

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www.axios.com/coates-energy-nsc-switch-discussed-cd557fc3-54ce-4328-88fb-f4f4faba7863.html

Top Trump administration officials are in discussions to reassign deputy national security adviser Victoria Coates to the Department of Energy from the National Security Council, per two sources familiar with the planning.

Why it matters: Coates’ working relationship with National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, who elevated her to the deputy role only months ago, has strained amid an effort by some people inside the administration to tag her as “Anonymous” — a charge she has vehemently denied to colleagues.

Coates could take on a senior role under Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette, the former deputy secretary who was elevated to lead the department in December after Rick Perry’s departure.
A decision on such a personnel move has not been finalized and discussions could still fall apart, one source tells Axios.

“We do not comment on personnel matters,” National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot told Axios. Coates declined comment.

Driving the news: As Politico first reported, Coates has been the target of a whisper campaign in recent weeks making a circumstantial case that she was the identity behind an op-ed in the New York Times and later a bestselling book describing a resistance movement against President Trump in his own White House.
One of the literary agents behind Anonymous’ book, “A Warning,” went so far as to release a statement saying explicitly that Coates is not the author, did not edit the book, did not see it in advance and did not know about it.

Between the lines: Coates’ potential reassignment comes as Trump, fresh from acquittal in his impeachment trial, institutes personnel moves to bring early loyalists back into the White House and tests purges of staff he considers disloyal throughout the federal government.

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dailycaller.com/2020/02/17/doj-official-fisa-report-william-barr-resign/

Ex-DOJ Official Named In FISA Abuse Report Signs Petition Calling On William Barr To Resign

A former Justice Department official who is discussed throughout the inspector general’s report on FISA abuse added his name Monday to a petition calling on William Barr to resign as attorney general.

David Laufman, who served as chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence and export control section through 2018, said Monday that he joined more than 2,000 former Justice Department employees who signed the petition, which was started by the anti-Trump activist group, Protect Democracy.


“Proud to join over 2000 of my fellow Justice Dept. alumni in expressing our alarm over recent actions by Attorney General Barr, and the vital importance of protecting the rule of law and the impartial, nonpartisan administration of justice,” wrote Laufman. (RELATED: CNN And MSNBC Analysts Sign Petition Urging William Barr To Resign)

The petition blasted Barr intervening in federal prosecutors’ recommendation that the Trump confidante serve between 87 months and 108 months in prison for obstructing a congressional investigation and witness tampering.

Barr said Thursday that he thought Stone deserves prison time, but that the initial recommendation was “very excessive.”

Laufman, who appears frequently on MSNBC and CNN, often to criticize the Trump administration, played a key role in both the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the Trump-Russia probe.

He conducted interviews alongside disgraced former FBI agent Peter Strzok during the Clinton email investigation. Laufman and Strzok interviewed Clinton herself July 2, 2016. They also conducted interviews with Clinton aides Human Abedin and Cheryl Mills in which the pair appear to have made inconsistent statements about their knowledge of Clinton’s private email server.

The Justice Department inspector general’s report on FISA abuse said Laufman helped arrange a key meeting for FBI and Justice Department officials that would raise significant concerns about the reliability of Christopher Steele, the former British spy whose dossier the FBI used to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Carter Page.

The inspector general report said Laufman arranged a meeting in January 2017 for Steele’s main source for information in the dossier. Laufman sat in on part of the interview.


Steele’s source disputed much of what was attributed to him in the dossier. The source, who has not been identified, told FBI agents and DOJ officials that Steele embellished or misrepresented information in the dossier that suggested a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian government, according to the inspector general report.

The inspector general report blasted the FBI and Justice Department for failing to disclose the potentially derogatory information on Steele to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The Justice Department deemed the two FISA warrants that were authorized following that meeting to be invalid, largely because of the failure to disclose the information from Steele’s source.

It is unclear what Laufman knew about what Steele’s source said in the meeting. He is not accused of wrongdoing in the report.

Laufman also told the inspector general that he never saw the FBI’s summary of the interview, and that he did not know enough about the dossier to know whether Steele’s source contradicted the document.

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Keep repeating the same line over & over does not make it a fact Pelosi.

www.dailywire.com/news/pelosi-trump-was-not-acquitted-by-senate-hes-branded-as-impeached-forever

Pelosi: Trump Was Not Acquitted By Senate, He’s ‘Branded’ As ‘Impeached Forever’

Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi falsely claimed in an interview that aired on Monday that President Donald Trump was not acquitted by the U.S. Senate earlier this month.


“What about though, the fact that the president seems liberated … he was acquitted, his poll ratings are higher,” CNN’s Christiane Amanpour said before being interrupted by Pelosi.

“He was not, there was no acquittal,” Pelosi falsely claimed. “You can’t have an acquittal unless you have a trial, and you can’t have a trail when you have witnesses and documents.”

“So he can say he’s acquitted, and the headlines can say ‘acquitted,’ but he’s impeached forever, branded with that and not vindicated,” Pelosi continued.

WATCH:

Later in the interview, Pelosi said, “I can’t even envision a situation where he would be re-elected, but we don’t take anything for granted. … but everybody knows that we must be unified in making sure that he does not have a second term.”

Pelosi continued, “Our country is great, the American people are wonderful, we’re a resilient country, we can withstand one term, but the destruction that he would do to the courts of our country and the environment … he must be defeated.”


Pelosi concluded by saying that when candidates are in the “arena” that “you have to be prepared to throw a punch, because you have to be prepared to take a punch, for the children.”

Pelosi’s claims were categorically false as Trump was acquitted in an official Senate trail from both of House Democrats’ partisan articles of impeachment.

Pelosi is not the first Democrat member of Congress that has falsely claimed that Trump was not acquitted from Democrats’ partisan articles of impeachment.

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer the same thing earlier this month after Trump’s acquittal.

“The Senate has clearly spoken now, the president was acquitted,” CNN host Wolf Blitzer began. “Do you think your –”

“No! Wolf, (laughs), [Trump] wasn’t acquitted,” Hirono falsely claimed. “It was a rigged trial. You don’t get acquitted when you don’t even get to call witnesses or relevant witnesses or have the documents because the president stone walled all efforts on the part of the House to get the information they requested.”

“So, there you go,” Hirono continued. “It was a rigged trial, he can run around saying he was acquitted but you don’t get acquitted in a rigged trial.”

“Well, I just want to point out Senator, there was a roll call, guilty or not guilty, not guilty was the majority and the Chief Justice of the United States announced that he was acquitted, that he was not guilty,” Blitzer responded.

“But the American public knows that it was a rigged trial,” Hirono claimed without evidence. “So, okay you’re found not guilty in a rigged trial. I don’t think that they think this was all kosher, not it wasn’t. So, meanwhile you have the president crowing about it, which is totally expected, and now it’s anything goes for this president and this administration and all his enablers.”

WATCH:

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Just weeks after President Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate of bogus partisan impeachment charges by the House of Representatives, a group of federal judges will hold an ’emergency meeting’ on Tuesday regarding the intervention by Attorney General William Barr against the abusive proposed sentence for Roger Stone and the criticism by President Trump of the proposed sentence and the federal judge overseeing the case, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, as well as other actions by Barr and Trump regarding ‘politically sensitive’ cases before the judiciary.

The emergency meeting will be held via conference call with officers and members of the executive committee of the 1,100 member Federal Judges Association because, association president Judge Cynthia Rufe (a Bush 43 appointee) said, “We just could not wait until April to discuss matters of this importance.” The judges’ annual meeting is set for April 18-19 in Denver.

The meeting comes on the heels of a letter signed by over 1,000 former Justice Department Deep State operatives calling on Barr to resign for overruling the punitive sentence of 7-9 years in prison proposed by federal prosecutors for Stone. The four prosecutors in the case resigned in protest over Barr’s intervention.

Judge Jackson will preside over a phone hearing in the Stone case on Tuesday. Stone has asked for a new trial after it was reported last week the foreman of the jury that convicted him is a virulent anti-Trump Democrat who posted about Stone’s case.

USA Today reported on the emergency meeting:

www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/02/17/roger-stone-sentence-judges-worried-political-interference/4788155002/

A national association of federal judges has called an emergency meeting Tuesday to address growing concerns about the intervention of Justice Department officials and President Donald Trump in politically sensitive cases, the group’s president said Monday.

Philadelphia U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe, who heads the independent Federal Judges Association, said the group “could not wait” until its spring conference to weigh in on a deepening crisis that has enveloped the Justice Department and Attorney General William Barr.

“There are plenty of issues that we are concerned about,” Rufe told USA TODAY. “We’ll talk all of this through.”

…Rufe said the judges’ association is “not inclined to get involved with an ongoing case,” but she voiced strong support for Jackson.

“I am not concerned with how a particular judge will rule,” Rufe said, praising Jackson’s reputation. “We are supportive of any federal judge who does what is required.”

Rufe said the group has not decided how it will report the result of its meeting, if at all. “We just could not …wait until April to discuss matters of this importance,” she said.

After Trump took Jackson to task on Twitter last week, another jurist – District of Columbia Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell – appeared to rally to Jackson’s side.

“The Judges of this Court base their sentencing decisions on careful consideration of the actual record in the case before them; the applicable sentencing guidelines and statutory factors; the submissions of the parties, the Probation Office and victims; and their own judgment and experience,” Howell said in a written statement. “Public criticism or pressure is not a factor.”

The Federal Judges Association describes itself:

www.federaljudgesassoc.org/section/subsection.php?structureid=20

The Federal Judges Association (FJA) is a national voluntary organization of United States federal judges, appointed pursuant to Article III of the Constitution, whose mission is to support and enhance the role of its members within a fair, impartial and independent judiciary; to actively build a community of interest among its members; and to sustain our system of justice through civics education and public outreach.

The independence of Article III judges is assured under the Constitution by their appointment for life without diminution in pay. Nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate, Article III judges are thus protected from intimidation, undue influence, coercion, or domination so that they may judge fairly and independently in every case, as the law and facts require.

Inevitably, from time to time, some judicial decisions are unpopular. The FJA, as an independent organization, can speak in one voice to protect the independence of the judiciary and to explain its significance to a free society. The Association expresses the collective view of Article III judges to other branches of government and the public on issues related to fair and impartial courts.

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dailycaller.com/2020/02/17/hunter-biden-coalition-ukraine/

Hunter Biden Was On Board Of Trade Coalition Lobbying Obama Admin On Ukraine Aid

Hunter Biden served on the board of a trade group that lobbied for increased spending on international aid, including for Ukraine.
Biden’s association with the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition and its close affiliate, the Center for U.S. Global Leadership, has gone unexplored in the coverage of his business dealings.
While affiliated with the groups, Biden joined the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings.
Hunter Biden was on the board of a trade coalition that lobbied the Obama administration in 2014 on foreign assistance to Ukraine, and appears to have set up a State Department meeting for the group’s president.

Biden’s links to the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC) and its affiliate, the Center for U.S. Global Leadership, have gone largely unreported in the coverage of his various business dealings, which have caused a headache for his father as he runs for president.


The Bidens have been dogged by allegations that the younger Biden profited off of his last name. Similar allegations have followed organizations like Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, which brought Hunter Biden on as a director in April 2014, despite his having no experience in the energy industry.

USGLC, which lobbies and advocates for increased spending in the State Department’s International Affairs Budget, added a series of Ukraine-related bills to its lobbying portfolio at around the same time, lobbying disclosures show.

Biden’s private equity firm, Rosemont Seneca, was by far the smallest company of any of the directors on USGLC or the Center for U.S. Global Leadership.

Other directors have included executives and lobbyists from Caterpillar, Cargill, Walmart, Intel, Chevron, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Think tanks such as the Bipartisan Policy Center and the American Enterprise Institute are represented on the group’s boards, as are officials with well-known NGOs like Save the Children and CARE, the anti-poverty group.


But what Rosemont Seneca lacked in terms of assets and name recognition it made up for in access to key figures in the Obama administration, with Joe Biden being at the top of the list.

Beyond that valuable connection, Hunter Biden’s partner Devon Archer was a former adviser on Obama Sec. of State John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. A third partner, Christopher Heinz, is Kerry’s son-in-law. (RELATED: ‘You Don’t Get More Politically Connected’: Participants In Securities Fraud Scam Touted Links To Hunter Biden)



Screen shot of USGLC.org’s “About us” page on Jan. 7, 2015, via Internet Archive.

The value of those political connections was highlighted in text messages cited in an unrelated criminal case against Archer.

“Hunter Biden works for [Archer]. So we’ve got the top level politicos with us. All of my guys, is as top tier as it gets,” a businessman named Bevan Cooney wrote in text messages released in Archer’s case.


“You don’t get more politically connected and make people more comfortable than that.”

Hunter Biden has publicly referred to himself as a member of USGLC’s board, though he was technically a director of the Center for U.S. Global Leadership.

Tax filings show that Biden was on the center’s board from 2012 through 2018.

In 2014, while affiliated with the groups, Biden joined the board of Burisma Holdings. The company, owned by Mykola Zlochevsky, who served as minister of natural resources under former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, paid Rosemont Seneca, Biden’s firm, more than $80,000 a month, according to publicly available records.

That partnership raised some eyebrows at the time because of Joe Biden’s role as the Obama administration’s main point man on Ukraine issues. Like many Ukrainian firms, especially those in the energy business, Burisma had a reputation for corruption. Hunter Biden’s link to the company was seen as undermining his father’s anti-corruption initiatives.

As part of his Ukraine initiative, Joe Biden pushed for increased aid to the former Soviet republic in the wake of its overthrow in February 2014 of Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president. But in 2016, he would threaten to withhold $1 billion in loan assistance to Ukraine that was made available through some of the very same legislation for which USGLC and some of its business partners lobbied.

USGLC also took an interest in Ukraine following Yanukovych’s ouster.

The group, which advocates and lobbies for increased spending in the State Department’s International Affairs Budget, added Ukraine to its portfolio of lobbying issues in April 2014, according to lobbying disclosure form filed with Congress.

USGLC is not well known outside of Washington, D.C. Founded in the mid-1990s, the coalition is made up of more than 400 major corporations and non-government organizations (NGOs), a mix that has earned the group the nickname the “strange bedfellows coalition” inside the Beltway. (RELATED: Consultant For Firm Linked To Hunter Biden Sought State Department Meeting To Downplay Corruption Concerns)

ATLANTA, GA - JULY 22: Hunter Biden attends Usher's New Look Foundation - World Leadership Conference & Awards 2011 - Day 3 at Cobb Energy Center on July 22, 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Moses Robinson/Getty Images for Usher's New Look Foundation)
Hunter Biden attends Usher’s New Look Foundation on July 22, 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia. Moses Robinson/Getty Images for Usher’s New Look Foundation)

Erik Lundsgaarde, a political scientist with the German Development Institute, wrote in “The Domestic Politics of Foreign Aid,” that USGLC formed in response to “dramatic budgetary cutbacks affecting aid spending.”

“The goal of the founders of the USGLC was to build a coalition capable of conducting professional lobbying to stave off further spending reductions and to advocate funding increases,” Lundsgaarde wrote.

The group engages in standard lobbying — Congress, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) are its biggest targets — but also hosts events that allow members to rub shoulders with policymakers, diplomats and other corporate executives.

One of those events was held in Washington on Dec. 13, 2013, to honor Joe Biden for his advocacy for increased international spending.

Marillyn Hewson, the CEO of Lockheed Martin, the defense and aerospace giant, introduced Hunter Biden to in turn introduce his father as the honoree of the event. During her remarks, Hewson spoke of using the coalition formed by USGLC to improve conditions in impoverished countries.

But she also spoke candidly about the financial benefits for USGLC’s corporate partners of increased international aid spending.

“For Lockheed Martin and the hundreds of business that are gathered here tonight, there is simply no choice about whether to be engaged in important global issues,” Hewson said.

“Today, 95% of the world’s consumer’s live outside of the U.S. and over half of our exports already go to over a half of the developing world, a number that’s only going to grow. The International Affairs Budget is absolutely critical to our future.”

Hewson then introduced Hunter Biden, touting his “strong relationship with our organization, and more importantly, a very special relationship with our honoree.”

Biden introduced himself at the event as a board member of USGLC rather than the Center for U.S. Global Leadership.

“USGLC is an important organization, and I am very proud to serve on their board,” he said.

During his speech, Joe Biden offered a full-throated defense of increases to the international aid budget; an endorsement that was in line with USGLC’s initiative. Biden also praised Raj Shah, the then-administrator of USAID who shares the name of a former Trump White House official, as “one hell of an effective guy.”

Biden also spoke extensively about Ukraine.

He said how he had recently talked to Yanukovych and urged him to negotiate with opposition parties, and set foot on a path to democracy.

“We hope he leads his country back to its European future, but he needs help because it’s in the fundamental interests of the United States that Ukraine succeed,” Biden said.

“The door is open but the Ukrainian people have to know that America stands with them on the side of universal rights, democratic principles and economic assistance.”

He also mentioned Elizabeth Schrayer, the president and CEO of USGLC and the Center.

“Liz, we’ve worked a lot together on foreign policy and other iterations, as well as here,” he said.

While Schrayer is deeply connected in Washington in her own right, Hunter Biden appears to also have helped her obtain access to the Obama administration.

“Sorry for the late thank you — appreciate you taking the meeting with Liz last week,” Hunter Biden wrote in an email on March 15, 2013, to David Wade, the chief of staff to then-Sec. of State John Kerry. “When things settle (relatively speaking) lets grab coffee.”

A spokesman for USGLC said the meeting was an introductory meeting between the coalition and the incoming Kerry team at the State Department.

“Over the past two decades, we’ve met with every Chief of Staff – Republican and Democratic Administrations – to talk about our work to strengthen support for the State Department. This was a typical introductory meeting with some of our leadership,” USGLC spokesman Sidney Traynham told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Months after Joe Biden’s remarks at the USGLC event, after the Ukrainian evolution led to Yanukovych’s ouster, President Obama tapped his vice president to help the new Ukrainian government implement democratic reforms, which included a fight against corruption.

Hunter Biden and USGLC took interest in Ukraine at around the same time.

Lobbying records show that USGLC paid $50,000 to lobby on a host of foreign aid measures in 2014, including several bills to provide billions of dollars in aid and assistance to Ukraine.

Its lobbying disclosure forms from April, July and October 2014 list lobbying activities on four separate Ukraine-related bills, including the Support for the Sovereignty, Integrity, Democracy and Economic Stability of Ukraine Act of 2014, the Ukraine Support Act, and the Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014.

Several USGLC coalition members lobbied separately for Ukraine-related issues during the same time frame.

Cargill, Coca-Cola, Chevron, Caterpillar and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce all lobbied on Ukraine-related bills in 2014 and 2015.

Traynham, the spokesman for USGLC and the Center for U.S. Global Leadership, said USGLC is broadly focused on increased spending on international development, and that the Ukrainian revolution in 2014 was a natural focus for the organization. He did not address whether Hunter Biden discussed Ukraine with anyone from the trade coalition.

“The Center for U.S. Global Leadership is a non-profit organization and individuals volunteer their time to serve on our board to advance our mission to create a better, safer world,” Trayham said in a statement.

“The organization advocates on only one issue: the overall importance of the International Affairs Budget, which seeks to strengthen America’s global leadership through diplomacy and global development,” he added.

The statement also said that Hunter Biden joined the center’s board “while serving as Chairman of the World Food Program USA.” Biden was on the board of the organization, but USGLC and the Center for U.S. Global Leadership cited his affiliation with Rosemont Seneca, the private equity firm, on its website.


Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event on February 02, 2020 in Dubuque, Iowa. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

In a twist of irony, Joe Biden would later use U.S. aid to Ukraine that was provided through Sovereignty, Integrity, Democracy and Economic Stability of Ukraine Act of 2014 to influence Yanukovych’s successor as president, Petro Poroshenko.

Joe Biden leveraged the third tranche of funds to force Poroshenko fire Viktor Shokin, who served as Ukraine’s general prosecutor.

Biden’s maneuver was not known until January 2018, when the future Democratic presidential candidate bragged at a Council on Foreign Relations event that he dangled the loan assistance over Poroshenko to get him to fire Shokin.

“And I went over, I guess, the 12th, 13th time to Kiev. And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t,” Biden said at the event.

He said as they were going to an event, he told his Ukrainian counterparts that he was not going to provide the billion dollars.

“They said, ‘you have no authority. You’re not the president,'” Biden recalled.

“I said, ‘I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars.’ I said, ‘you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in,’ I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.'”

“Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”

The U.S. and Ukraine signed an agreement for the loan support months later, on June 3, 2016.

Trump allies have seized on the remarks and Hunter Biden’s role with Burisma to accuse Joe Biden of corruption. Rudy Giuliani, the lawyer for Trump, discovered and began hyping the Biden video from 2018 as evidence of corruption on the part of the former vice president.

Trump was so enamored with the theory that he brought it up during a July 25, 2019, phone call with Poroshenko’s successor, Volodymyr Zelensky. That call eventually led to Trump’s impeachment after a CIA whistleblower alleged in a complaint filed Aug. 12, 2019.

Joe Biden has denied ever intervening with Poroshenko on behalf of his son, or Burisma. Biden and his defenders have also challenged the idea that Shokin was investigating or planned to investigate Burisma, or that Joe Biden was ever aware of an investigation.

Hunter Biden’s lawyer, George Mesires, did not respond to a request for comment.