Obama-Lynch Justice Department
August 16, 2020 — John Hinderaker
So far we have said nothing about Kevin Clinesmith’s guilty plea, which illustrates the fact that these days, the news is impossible to keep up with. Clinesmith, as you probably remember, was an FBI lawyer, an assistant general counsel assigned to the Bureau’s National Security and Cyber Law branch in Washington. In that capacity, he supported FBI investigations, including Crossfire Hurricane. Clinesmith was instrumental in submitting some, at least, of
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March 13, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Rep. Doug Collins has released the testimony of former FBI lawyer Lisa Page to the House Judiciary Committee over two days this past July. He has posted day 1 (July 13) of Page’s testimony here. He has posted day 2 (July 16) of Page’s testimony here. I have embedded the two transcripts below via Scribd. I have just turned to these transcripts this morning, but I can borrow President Trump’s
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March 10, 2019 — Scott Johnson
On Friday Rep. Doug Collins released the transcript of Bruce Ohr’s testimony to the House Oversight Committee this past August. I have embedded the 268-page transcript below via Scribd. Ohr appeared before the committee voluntarily, not under subpoena, in connection with its investigation of bias within the Department of Justice and the FBI. He is a key participant in the Obama administration activities that, taken together, amount to one helluva
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September 21, 2018 — Scott Johnson
In the memoir Cardiac Arrest: Five Heart-Stopping Years as a CEO on the Feds’ Hit List (written with Stephen Saltarelli), Howard Root tells the story of his experience as chief executive officer of Vascular Solutions caught in the crosshairs of the federal government when prosecutors sought to put his company out of business and to send him to the big house. Howard touched on one aspect of his story in
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August 28, 2018 — John Hinderaker
Bruce Ohr, the number four official in Barack Obama’s Department of Justice, testified before the House Oversight and Judiciary committees today. Given what we know about his role in the DOJ/FBI scandal, his testimony should have been riveting. However, he testified in closed session, so this will be a short post. Fox News hints at what happened behind closed doors: While lawmakers told reporters that Ohr was being cooperative, Rep.
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August 19, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The mind-boggling scandal of the Obama administration’s treatment of the Trump presidential campaign continues to unravel, but you’d never know from taking in your news via the mainstream media. Former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr is scheduled to testify under oath this week before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees on August 28. Ohr seems to have served as a conduit for Christopher Steele’s continued service to the FBI
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August 8, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Byron York reports: Emails in 2016 between former British spy Christopher Steele and Justice Department official Bruce Ohr suggest Steele was deeply concerned about the legal status of a Putin-linked Russian oligarch, and at times seemed to be advocating on the oligarch’s behalf, in the same time period Steele worked on collecting the Russia-related allegations against Donald Trump that came to be known as the Trump dossier. The emails show
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July 21, 2018 — John Hinderaker
Given that most of the application that Barack Obama’s Department of Justice submitted to the FISA court to obtain a surveillance order on Carter Page has been redacted, what we can say about the application is limited. Still, a few things stand out. First, the FISA application expresses confidence that Page was an agent of the Russian government, and engaged in criminal activity: But Page has never been charged with
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June 17, 2018 — Scott Johnson
An overwhelming wealth of story lines emerge from the IG report on the Clinton email “investigation,” as I call it, released this past Thursday. I posted it via Scrbid here. As Andrew McCarthy pointed out before the election in 2016 and repeatedly since (perhaps most recently here), the fix was in from the beginning. The fix was in because Obama was in on the wrongdoing and he was the head
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June 15, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Dipping into the Department of Justice Inspector General report released yesterday, we are inundated with information and interesting story lines. One such story line involves Bill Clinton’s response to the uproar created over his tarmac meeting with then Attorney General Loretta Lynch the Monday before Hillary Clinton’s scheduled weekend interview with the FBI in the email “investigation,” as we should probably refer to it. The uproar led to FBI Director
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April 22, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Jack Goldsmith, writing in the Guardian, tells us that the “deep state” is real and dangerous. His assertions carry weight for two reasons. First, Goldsmith should know. He was a high ranking Justice Department official — head the Office of Legal Counsel — during part of the George W. Bush administration. This placed him in the middle of issues regarding national security, electronic surveillance, and the like. He also worked
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March 28, 2018 — Scott Johnson
In the memoir Cardiac Arrest: Five Heart-Stopping Years as a CEO on the Feds’ Hit List (written with Stephen Saltarelli), Howard Root tells the story of his experience as chief executive officer of Vascular Solutions caught in the crosshairs of the federal government when prosecutors sought to put his company out of business and to send him to the big house. Howard touched on one aspect of his story in
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January 8, 2018 — Scott Johnson
As Sundance has tracked the cast of characters in the Obama administration who were involved in the putative surveillance of the Trump campaign, he has noted the apparent toll of ongoing investigations on their jobs. Among notable examples at the FBI are Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok. The toll reflects suspected or actual wrongdoing of one kind or another. Something is happening here. Comparable changes have taken place at the
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January 7, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The pseudonymous Sundance is the proprietor of the Conservative Treehouse site (he spells it Tree House). As a reader, I find him incredibly frustrating. He is a poor and clumsy writer. The basics of exposition seem to have escaped him. He is verbose. Clarity is a casualty of his style. Occasional translation of his prose is required (“This timeline is so transparent it’s deafening”). One needs constantly to be wary
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January 3, 2018 — Scott Johnson
There is no one whose opinion I wanted more than that of former Assistant United States Attorney Andrew McCarthy on “Fear and loathing at the DoJ.” He knows what he is talking about. I am grateful that he took the time to read the post, watch the video of Howard Root’s account of the criminal case against him (Howard, that is), and comment via Twitter (below). Andy’s tweet to his
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January 2, 2018 — Scott Johnson
In the memoir Cardiac Arrest: Five Heart-Stopping Years as a CEO on the Feds’ Hit List (written with Stephen Saltarelli), Howard Root tells the story of his experience as chief executive officer of Vascular Solutions caught in the crosshairs of the federal government when prosecutors sought to put his company out of business and to send him to the big house. Howard touched on one aspect of his story in
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December 30, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
The New York Times reports that the impetus for the FBI’s investigation of suspected collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia was not the anti-Trump dossier, but rather statements made by George Papadopoulos. He was the young Trump campaign staffer who later pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. According to the Times, after a heavy night of drinking, Papadopoulos told Australia’s top diplomat in Britain that Russia had political
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