M.N.: Does the FBI have this "serious evidence"? That's the question. | "Perhaps the Times report is exaggerated, or the FBI has serious evidence of a criminally corrupt quid pro quo between Trump and Moscow that there’s no public indication of yet. Otherwise, the Times story is a damning account of an offense against our political order, and not by Donald Trump." - Trump Collusion Investigation: FBI Behavior An Offense To Political Order - National Review
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"Perhaps the Times report is exaggerated, or the FBI has serious evidence of a criminally corrupt quid pro quo between Trump and Moscow that there’s no public indication of yet. Otherwise, the Times story is a damning account of an offense against our political order, and not by Donald Trump."
M.N.: Does the FBI have this "serious evidence"? That's the question.
M.N.: Does the FBI have this "serious evidence"? That's the question.
The FBI should brush up on the powers of the chief executive.
The FBI took it upon itself to determine whether the president of the United States is a threat to national security.
No one had ever before thought that this was an appropriate role for the FBI, a subordinate agency in the executive branch, but Donald Trump isn’t the only one in Washington trampling norms.
The New York Times reported the astonishing news. “Counterintelligence investigators,” the paper writes, “had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security.” U.S. presidents over the decades have made many foolhardy decisions that have undermined our security; never before have they been deemed a fit subject for an FBI investigation.
The proximate cause for the probe into Trump was his firing of FBI director James Comey, which the FBI considered both a potential crime and a national-security matter because it might shut down the investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election.
Even if they were shocked by the treatment of Comey, top FBI officials should have been able to quickly ascertain that the Russia investigation continued unimpeded — indeed, it is still ongoing today.
NOW WATCH: 'U.S. Trade Negotiations Continue Despite Shutdown'
If the Times reporting is correct, the FBI grew more suspicious of Trump’s conduct based on comments that have been widely misunderstood. Among the bill of particulars:
—During the campaign, he urged the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton’s email. Trump clearly meant this line sardonically, though.
—The GOP platform allegedly was softened toward Russia. Never mind that, as Byron York of the Washington Examiner has demonstrated, this didn’t actually happen.
—And in his Lester Holt interview after the Comey firing, Trump said that “this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.” The president added, it’s worth noting, that he knew firing Comey probably extended the investigation rather than shortened it.
More legitimately, agents were disturbed by Trump’s continual praise for Vladimir Putin. These comments were blameworthy, but not a federal offense.
The Times implies that foreign policy played into the FBI internal debate whether to investigate Trump. “Many involved in the case,” the paper reports, “viewed Russia as the chief threat to American democratic values.” That is an entirely defensible and perhaps correct view (China is the other candidate for the dubious distinction). But there is no warrant for the FBI letting it influence the momentous decision whether to investigate a president of the United States.
As part of the executive branch, the FBI should brush up on the powers of the chief executive. The president gets to fire subordinate executive-branch officials. He gets to meet with and talk to foreign leaders. He gets to make policy toward foreign nations. Especially important to the current investigation, he gets to say foolish, ill-informed, and destructive things.
If the president wants to tilt toward Russia (not that Trump really has, except in his words), he can. If he wants to butter up China’s dictatorial president during high-stakes trade negotiations, he can. If he wants to announce a precipitous withdrawal from Syria and make it slightly less precipitous in a fog of confusion, he can.
And the FBI should have nothing to say about it.
The Times story is another sign that we have forgotten the role of our respective branches of government. It is Congress that exists to check and investigate the president, not the FBI. Congress can inveigh against his foreign policy and constrain his options. It can build a case for not reelecting him and perhaps impeach him. These are all actions to be undertaken out in the open by politically accountable players, so the public can make informed judgments about them.
Perhaps the Times report is exaggerated, or the FBI has serious evidence of a criminally corrupt quid pro quo between Trump and Moscow that there’s no public indication of yet.
Otherwise, the Times story is a damning account of an offense against our political order, and not by Donald Trump.
© 2019 by King Features Syndicate
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- Former top FBI lawyer James Baker under criminal investigation for media leaks Washington Examiner
- Former top FBI lawyer James Baker subject of criminal media leak probe, transcript reveals Fox News
- Former FBI General Counsel James Baker under criminal investigation CNN
- Ex-FBI general counsel faced criminal leak probe POLITICO
- Republicans request update on investigation into ex-FBI official accused of leaks | TheHill The Hill
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Transcripts detail how FBI debated whether Trump was 'following directions' of Russia
Posted: 6:32 AM, Jan 14, 2019 Updated: 1 hour agoBy: CNN
M.N.: A bunch of the Incompetent Obamanites, not the professional Counterintelligence officers. No wonder...
"I'm speaking theoretically. If the President of the United States fired Jim Comey at the behest of the Russian government, that would be unlawful and unconstitutional," Baker said.
"Is that what happened here?" Rep. John Ratcliffe, a Texas Republican, asked Baker.
"I don't know," Baker responded, before the FBI lawyer cut off additional questions on that line of inquiry.
M.N.: What are the facts indicating the "behest of the Russian government"? Present them in a safe, non-classified way. What was the thinking, the interpretation of these facts? What was the logical or the intuitive ("hunches") process of transforming the interpretations of these facts into the specific decisions? Etc., etc. This account is more consistent with the picture of the scared panicky little children who do not really understand what is going on rather than the high level FBI officers. This impression is also consistent with the other and well known facts of these people's (specifically Strzok and Page) immature, to put it very mildly, behavior.
Once, some years ago, in SJ airport, the FBI agents tried to provoke me by using some colorful but standard slurs. Go check your records, if you kept them. I will return their courtesy with passion and pleasure:
Miserable, pathetic, stupid, incompetent, brainless, treacherous little Fags (Straight or Gay, does not matter, still the same miserable, stupid, good for nothing, village idiots, FBI FAGS)-Robots-Idiots!
As long as you are in the FBI, this country will not have any luck.
Purge them!
Do not fuck with Mike. Bike with Mike.
____________________________________
In the chaotic aftermath at the FBI following Director James Comey's firing, a half-dozen senior FBI officials huddled to set in motion the momentous move to open an investigation into President Donald Trump that included trying to understand why he was acting in ways that seemed to benefit Russia.
They debated a range of possibilities, according to portions of transcripts of two FBI officials' closed-door congressional interviews obtained by CNN. On one end was the idea that Trump fired Comey at the behest of Russia. On the other was the possibility that Trump didn't have an improper relationship with the Kremlin and was acting within the bounds of his executive authority, the transcripts show.
James Baker, then-FBI general counsel, said the FBI officials were contemplating with regard to Russia whether Trump was "acting at the behest of and somehow following directions, somehow executing their will."
"That was one extreme. The other extreme is that the President is completely innocent, and we discussed that too," Baker told House investigators last year. "There's a range of things this could possibly be. We need to investigate, because we don't know whether, you know, the worst-case scenario is possibly true or the President is totally innocent and we need to get this thing over with — and so he can move forward with his agenda."
Following Comey's firing, the FBI opened a probe into Trump for possible obstruction of justice , as CNN has previously reported. Part of the impetus for the investigation, the New York Times first reported Friday, was whether Trump's actions seemed to benefit Russia.
The congressional transcripts obtained by CNN reveal new details into how the FBI launched the investigation into Trump and the discussions that were going on inside the bureau during a tumultuous and pivotal period ahead of the internal investigation and special counsel Robert Mueller's appointment.
Republicans view the officials' comments as evidence that top officials at the FBI were planning all along to investigate Trump and that the probe wasn't sparked by the Comey firing, according to a Republican source with knowledge of the interviews.
While the FBI launched its investigation in the days after Comey's abrupt dismissal, the bureau had previously contemplated such a step, according to testimony from former FBI lawyer Lisa Page.
Peter Strzok, the former FBI agent who was dismissed from Mueller's team and later fired over anti-Trump text messages, texted Page in the hours after Comey's firing and said: "We need to open the case we've been waiting on now while Andy is acting," a reference to then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
Page was pressed on the meaning of the message in her interview with congressional investigators, and she confirmed that the text was related to the Russia investigation into potential collusion.
Page told lawmakers the decision to open the case was not about "who was occupying the director's chair," according to a source. While FBI lawyers limited her answers about the text, she said the text wasn't suggesting that the case couldn't be opened with Comey as director.
"It's not that it could not have been done," Page told lawmakers. "This case had been a topic of discussion for some time. The 'waiting on' was an indecision and a cautiousness on the part of the bureau with respect to what to do and whether there was sufficient predication to open."
Portions of Page's interview were first reported by The Epoch Times.
This weekend, Trump in a series of tweets attacked the FBI and Comey, calling him a "crooked cop."
FBI debated whether Trump followed Russia's direction
CNN
Transcripts of two FBI officials closed-door congressional interviews reveal agency officials were looking into President Trump's relationship with Russia.
Published at: 7:30 AM, Mon Jan 14 2019
"Wow, just learned in the Failing New York Times that the corrupt former leaders of the FBI, almost all fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons, opened up an investigation on me, for no reason & with no proof, after I fired Lyin' James Comey, a total sleaze!" Trump tweeted .
In his congressional testimony, Baker said that he did not discuss with Comey the possibility that Russia had influenced his firing. But Baker met with a group of roughly a half-dozen officials, including McCabe and possibly Strzok and Page, to discuss it.
"Not only would it be an issue of obstructing an investigation, but the obstruction itself would hurt our ability to figure out what the Russians had done, and that is what would be the threat to national security," Baker told lawmakers, according to an excerpt from the transcript first reported by the Times and confirmed by CNN.
Baker said the notion that Trump was acting at the behest of Russia was "discussed as a theoretical possibility."
"I'm speaking theoretically. If the President of the United States fired Jim Comey at the behest of the Russian government, that would be unlawful and unconstitutional," Baker said.
"Is that what happened here?" Rep. John Ratcliffe, a Texas Republican, asked Baker.
"I don't know," Baker responded, before the FBI lawyer cut off additional questions on that line of inquiry.
Representatives for Baker, Page, Strzok and McCabe declined to comment.
Comey's firing wasn't the only development that prompted the investigation into Trump, according to the Times, as Trump subsequently tied Comey's firing to the Russia investigation on two separate occasions before the investigation was launched, including in an NBC News interview two days after Comey's dismissal.
Republicans asked in their interviews with FBI officials questions about the fact that both Comey and McCabe kept memos detailing their conversations with Trump, a step they didn't take with President Barack Obama. Comey's memos, in which he wrote that Trump suggested Comey drop the probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, were leaked by a friend of Comey after his firing in an effort to spark the appointment of a special counsel.
When Page was asked about McCabe's memos, she acknowledged she had reviewed some of them, though she said it was mostly for proofreading. House Republicans issued a subpoena for McCabe's memos last year, but the Justice Department did not hand them over, according to a source familiar with the congressional investigation.
In his interview with House investigators, Comey was pressed on why he made memos of his conversations with Trump about an ongoing investigation, but not Obama. Comey responded that Obama discussed the Hillary Clinton email investigation "on Fox News" and he didn't need to memorialize such a public comment.
"The public comments, because they were widely broadcast, were ones that were apparent to the senior leadership team of the FBI," Comey said. "If I didn't tell the senior leadership team of the FBI about my conversation with President Trump, they wouldn't otherwise know and couldn't help me figure out what to do with what was potential obstruction of justice."
The FBI officials were interviewed as part of the Republican House investigation into the FBI's conduct in the Clinton and Trump investigations, which ended after Democrats took control of the House this month.
Copyright 2019 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.
Do not shed your crocodile tears for your beloved FBI, our dear Not Exactly The Big (Maybe, Medium?) Brother Barak! They are your Baby now. You own them and their "Obama's FBI" History, documented by the ACLU, among your other leftist "allies". I do think that you, Your Para-Socialist Majesty, should be investigated too, and very thoroughly. You and Trump are just the two sides of the same coin, and I believe, that both of you are, indeed, the New Abwehr's babes; both probably unwitting, but the degree and the quality of this "unwittingness" have to be explored, examined, and determined. The FBI's "Dishonesty and Corruption", as Gregg named them aptly, may be "endemic", and chronic but these problems, it seems to me, were exacerbated greatly during the Obama Presidency, and this period, in retrospect, might be viewed as the times of the War on the FBI by the New Abwehr and the other opponents.
Michael Novakhov
1.14.19
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