FBI
June 8, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I have been waiting for a New York Post editorial or column to bring us up to date on House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s struggle to extract the Form FD-1023 in which the FBI “recorded allegations, from a long-term trusted, paid confidential FBI source, that Joe Biden was allegedly paid a $5 million bribe by someone in Ukraine while he was vice president.” Miranda Devine performs the service in
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June 8, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Racket News has unlocked Andrew Lowenthal’s column “Twitter Files Extra: How the World’s ‘No-Kidding Decision Makers’ Got Organized.” Subhead: “The Atlantic Council is hosting its 360/0S Summit at RightsCon this week, and Twitter Files documents tell us more about how this VIP-room-within-a-VIP-room was formed.” Lowenthal describes himself as a writer and consultant focused on digital authoritarianism and civil liberties. He manages the Network Affects site on Substack and now works
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June 5, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Matt Taibbi published the subscribers-only post “My crazy IRS case” on May 24 at his Racket News site. I picked it up and quoted from it in part 2 of this series on the deep-state harassment of Taibbi. Taibbi’s post on his IRS case is now available in the video below, narrated by Jared Moore. I can only add that attention must be paid, or so one would think.
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May 25, 2023 — Elizabeth Stauffer
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) issued a subpoena to the FBI on May 3 to obtain an unclassified FD-1023 which allegedly details a bribery scheme between then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national. As I reported on Tuesday, the FBI refused to hand over the document by the original compliance date and continues to obstruct Comer’s efforts. Comer fired off a new letter to FBI Director Christopher
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May 25, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Following up on “Don’t shoot Matt Taibbi either,” I want to note Matt Taibbi’s subscribers-only post “My crazy IRS case.” Taibbi has of course been a key contributor to the Twitter Files. In his Twitter Files reporting Taibbi has documented the government/social media censorship industrial complex led by the FBI. See, for example, his December 24, 2022 Twitter Files thread “Twitter and ‘other government agencies.'” The FBI disapproved of Taibbi’s
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May 24, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Matt Taibbi writes from the perspective of the ever shrinking political left supportive of civil liberties and, well, the truth. I turned to him on a regular basis for his unerring commentary on the Russia hoax. More recently, he has been a key contributor to the Twitter Files. In his subscribers-only post “The McCarthy reboot” at his Racket News site, Taibbi reviewed the performance of the Democrats at the House
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May 23, 2023 — Elizabeth Stauffer
During a Monday meeting with House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY), the FBI refused once again to turn over an FD-1023 (a report from an informant) that allegedly details a bribery scheme between then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national. Comer issued a subpoena for this document three weeks ago. In a May 3 letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, Sen. Chuck Grassley
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May 20, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Rotten apples or rotten to the core? That is the question raised about the FBI yesterday by Kim Strassel’s weekly Wall Street Journal column on the Durham report. John excerpted her column in a nearby post. John’s post really helps to bring the question into focus. In my own “Note on the Durham report” I asserted that the FBI needed to be torn down and rebuilt. I quoted the FBI’s
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May 19, 2023 — John Hinderaker
In the Wall Street Journal, relying in part on the Durham report, Kim Strassel argues that the FBI is not fundamentally rotten. Rather, the problems lay at the top: Readers won’t find many direct quotes in the report from former Director James Comey or former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe—both refused to cooperate with Mr. Durham. Mr. Comey has publicly distanced himself from events, honing his mastery of “I don’t recall.”
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May 19, 2023 — Scott Johnson
House Republicans convened a hearing on FBI whistleblowers yesterday. The name of the committee is a mouthful — the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Rep. Jim Jordan is chair of both the House Judiciary Committee and this House subcommittee and chaired the hearing. The hearing was a companion to the interim staff report released yesterday. The subcommittee heard testimony from three FBI whistleblowers and
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May 18, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Miranda Devine celebrates the beatdown of the repulsive Rep. Dan Goldman by reporter Julio Rosas at the House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Tuesday. Devine’s column is headlined “Taking down loathsome lefty pol Dan Goldman.” Goldman cuts a ridiculous figure as he appeals to the authority of the FBI. His timing of the appeal to authority is a bit off in this case. Goldman’s histrionic appeal to authority comes in
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May 16, 2023 — Elizabeth Stauffer
The Durham investigation has concluded what most of us knew all along. There was no legal basis for the FBI’s 2016 probe into the Trump campaign or the Mueller investigation that followed. It was all a lie. The FBI, once a highly-revered American institution, teamed up with the Hillary Clinton campaign to (try to) rig the presidential election. And they were all in on it. Then-President Barack Obama was briefed
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May 15, 2023 — John Hinderaker
As Steve noted earlier this afternoon, John Durham released his long-awaited report today. The report is long, over 300 pages, and I have not had time to read it all. It is embedded below; you can read it and draw your own conclusions. While measured in tone, the report’s Executive Summary is harshly critical of the FBI. Much of what it details has already been in the public domain, but
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May 15, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Justice Department special counsel John Durham has at long last released his final report into the FBI’s investigation of the Trump Russia hoax of 2016, and even the mainstream media can’t conceal or disguise the blows Durham delivers at the FBI. Moreover, besides launching an investigation of Trump based on nothing and not telling him, Durham notes that very different handling of corroborated evidence that foreign interests were trying to
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May 3, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Per Miranda Devine, the House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed FBI Director Christopher Wray for an FBI FD-1023 form that, according to a whistleblower, documents a bribe paid to Joe Biden, as vice president, by a representative of a foreign power. Further, Senator Charles Grassley and Congressman James Comer sent this letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Director Wray earlier today: The foreign country is said not to be China.
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April 25, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I greatly respect the biographer/historian David Garrow for the depth of his research and the honesty of his work. I wrote about his gargantuan biography of Barack Obama in “Obama’s airbrushed dreams” and quoted from his response to one of my queries about it. As the title
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April 22, 2023 — John Hinderaker
On March 27, nearly a month ago, Audrey Hale murdered six people in a Nashville school before herself being killed by police. Like substantially all mass murderers, Hale was deeply troubled. Among other things, shortly before her rampage she decided that she was, or wanted to be, a man. Her murders came immediately before a national “Trans Day of Vengeance” that was promoted with violent imagery. And the trans movement
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