Texts Reportedly Show Former Mueller Team Members Knew Charges Wouldn't Be Filed Against Clinton

JENNI FINK | JAN 21, 2018 | 3:59 PM

Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

After text messages between senior FBI lawyer Lisa Page and agent Peter Strzok revealed a heavy bias against President Donald Trump, Strzok was reassigned to the FBI's human resources department.
However, before he was reassigned, he worked on the investigation into whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton mishandled classified information on her private email account.
According to Fox News, the U.S. Department of Justice supplied congressional committees with 384 pages of text messages.
Lawmakers told Fox News that some of the newly discovered ones indicate that Page and Strzok knew Clinton wouldn't be charged before she was even interviewed.
Fox News reported one of the exchanges between the two parties referenced then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch's decision to accept the FBI's conclusion after an impromptu meeting with former President Bill Clinton.
“Timing looks like hell,” Strzok reportedly texted Page.
“Yeah, that is awful timing,” Page wrote back and added later, “It's a real profile in couragw (sic), since she knows no charges will be brought.”
Clinton met with the FBI for a three-hour interview on July 2, 2016. Fox News reported the exchange is dated July 1, 2016.
A recent report by The Daily Caller also revealed that the FBI “failed to preserve” text messages between Page and Strzok from Dec. 14, 2016, to May 17, 2017.
Stephen Boyd, the assistant attorney general for legislative affairs at the Justice Department, said “misconfiguration issues” caused the data to not be “automatically collected and retained for long-term storage and retrieval.”

FBI officials worried about being too tough on Hillary Clinton during email investigation

FBI officials worried about being too tough on Hillary Clinton during email investigation, texts show

Strzok-Page text messages recovered for key dates

The political rhetoric over the FISA abuse memo took a new turn with the ranking Democrat drafting his own version; Catherine Herridge goes in-depth for 'Special Report.'

FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were concerned about being too tough on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during the bureau’s investigation into her email practices because she might hold it against them as president, text messages released on Thursday indicated.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley released new messages between bureau officials Page and Strzok, who were having an affair and exchanged more than 50,000 texts with each other during the election.

“One more thing: she might be our next president,” Page texted Strzok on Feb. 25, 2016, in the midst of the presidential campaign, in reference to Clinton.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley released new messages between bureau officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, who were having an affair and exchanged more than 50,000 texts with each other.  (Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

“The last thing you need [is] going in there loaded for bear,” she continued. “You think she’s going to remember or care that it was more [DOJ] than [FBI]?”
Strzok replied that he “agreed” and he had relayed their discussion with someone named “Bill.”
Strzok not only worked on the Clinton case, but was assigned to the special counsel’s probe into Russia and the Trump campaign after a number of anti-Trump texts were discovered on his phone. Page also briefly worked on the special counsel investigation.
DOJ RECOVERS MISSING TEXT MESSAGES BETWEEN ANTI-TRUMP FBI AGENTS STRZOK AND PAGE
Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said Thursday in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray that the exchange, among others, concerned him.
“The text messages that were provided raise serious concerns about the impartiality of senior leadership running both the Clinton and Trump investigations,” Grassley said.

FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were concerned about being too tough on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during the bureau’s investigation into her email practices because she might hold it against them as president, newly released text messages indicate.

During the campaign, the FBI investigated Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. Then-FBI Director James Comey decided against recommending prosecution, but faulted Clinton and her associates for being “extremely careless” with classified information.
Republicans, arguing some top officials at the FBI are politically biased against Trump, have seized on the texts, including one where Strzok and Page spoke of a “secret society” within the Department of Justice and the FBI and Strzok spoke of an “insurance policy” against a Trump win.
New texts released by Grassley on Thursday also indicated that FBI officials believed FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe should be recused from the Clinton investigation because of his family’s ties to Virginia Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who is close with the Clintons.
In an October 28, 2016 text exchange, Page told Strzok that then- FBI Chief of Staff James Rybicki thought McCabe should not have participated in the probe.
“Rybicki just called to check in,” she wrote. “He very clearly 100% believes that Andy should be recused because of the ‘perception.’”
“God,” Strzok replied.
Asked by Page why McCabe should be recused now, if not before, Strzok said: “I assume McAuliffe picked up.”
McCabe eventually recused himself from the Clinton probe one week before the election.

New texts released by Grassley on Thursday also indicate FBI officials believed FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe should be recused from the Clinton investigation because of his family’s ties to Virginia Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who is close with the Clintons.

“If McCabe eventually recused himself one week before the election, why did he not do so sooner?” Grassley asked Wray in the letter.
Grassley also told Wray he was concerned that Page and Strzok were transmitting government records on personal systems inappropriately. In a June 2017 message, Strzok wrote of typing a document on a “home computer.”
The senator said Page and Strzok also referenced other conversations “via iMessage, presumably on their personal Apple devices.”
“It appears that Strzok and Page transmitted federal records pertaining to the Clinton investigation on private, non-government services,” Grassley said. “It is important to determine whether their own similar conduct was a factor in not focusing on and developing evidence of similar violations by Secretary Clinton and her aides.”
The new messages surfaced the same day the Justice Department’s inspector general said he recovered a number of missing text messages between Strzok and Page.
Fox News has learned from U.S. government officials that the inspector general recovered the texts by taking possession of "at least four" phones belonging to Strzok and Page

Colin Kaepernick donates $10K to leading Soros-backed resistance group

FILE - In this Dec. 24, 2016, file photo San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick talks during a news conference after an NFL football game against the Los Angeles Rams. The free agent quarterback was named GQ magazine’s “Citizen of ... more >

Print

By Valerie Richardson - The Washington Times - Sunday, January 21, 2018

Colin Kaepernick entered the home stretch of his Million Dollar Pledge last week with a donation to one of Democratic moneyman George Soros’s favorite left-wing resistance groups.
The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback announced Thursday that his foundation would give $10,000 to the Advancement Project as part of his commitment to donate $1 million to organizations “working in oppressed communities.”
Advancement Project has another prominent funder: Mr. Soros, whose major philanthropies have given more than $9.5 million to the group since 1999, according to the conservative Capital Research Center.
With offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., Advancement Project describes itself as a “multi-racial civil rights organization,” but the group is best known for promoting “voting rights” by opposing initiatives such as photo ID requirements, voter-fraud investigations, and removing inactive voters from the rolls.
“They are the leading opponents of voter integrity,” said Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center (CRC).
The billionaire Soros has made grants to thousands of individuals and organizations through his Open Society

North Korea's nuclear development can't be blamed on Trump, says former Clinton advisor

• The rogue state's rapid nuclear advancement is the result of three administrations' successive failures, former foreign policy director says
• Clinton, Bush and Obama all pursued various agreements, negotiations and sanctions over the course of two decades
• Trump has gotten some credit for spurring current North-South talks after issuing fiery threats to the North

North Korea a 20 year failure of US foreign policy: James Rubin   3 Hours Ago | 02:11

North Korea's rapidly advancing nuclear capability is not the fault of President Donald Trump, but rather of successive U.S. administrations who've failed to reign in the rogue state, according to a former White House foreign policy director.
"Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump: this is a 20-year failure of American foreign policy," James Rubin, former assistant secretary of state for public affairs under the Bill Clinton administration, told CNBC Friday.
Rubin tempered his criticism, however, stressing it was important to remember that "there are limits to what you can do in a country like that if you aren't prepared to go to war."
The comments come on the tail of the first government-level talks between North and South Korea in more than two years, as both countries prepare for the Winter Olympics in South Korea. North Korea has been a constant presence in international headlines, developing nuclear weapons and testing missiles at a faster rate than at any point in its history.

KCNA | Reuters

A view of the newly developed intercontinental ballistic rocket Hwasong-15's test that was successfully launched is seen in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang November 30, 2017.

Pyongyang has fired 23 missiles during 16 tests since the start of 2017, conducting its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in July, and claims it is now capable of striking the U.S. mainland.
Some observers blame Trump's bellicose words and tweets toward North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the current spike in tensions. The U.S. president has threatened to "totally destroy" the country and has mocked Kim in tweets, calling him "Little Rocket Man" and deriding attempts at diplomacy. He recently expressed support for the talks with the South, however, which took place Tuesday in the border town of Panmunjom.

Tweet1

Asked whether the tough talk might be having a positive effect on spurring talks, Rubin replied: "Possibly, but I think more (than) that is that the North Koreans now have something they never had before, which is the ability, probably, to take a nuclear weapon from Pyongyang to any city in the United States. That's the new part of this, and that hasn't changed yet."

Previous administrations' dealings with the North

Under Bill Clinton, an agreement called the Agreed Framework was passed whereby an international coalition would replace North Korea's plutonium reactor with two light-water reactors in exchange for 500,000 tons of heavy fuel each year from the U.S. The deal was not popular in Congress, and was scrapped shortly after George W. Bush came to power. In response, the North kicked out its U.N. inspectors and relaunched its nuclear development.
The Bush administration focused on multilateral negotiations, launching the Six-Party Talks in 2003 with China's help, which also included Russia, Japan and South Korea. But the talks were impeded by numerous lengthy boycotts by the North. By early 2005, North Korea declared it was in possession of nuclear weapons and would not attend future talks.
Finally, Barack Obama stuck with the diplomatic route, first employing a conciliatory approach and later implementing sanctions, but similarly to no avail. Pyongyang would oversee four underground nuclear tests by the time Obama left office.

DigitalGlobe | 38 North | Getty Images

On December 28, 2017, large numbers of personnel are observed at the Southern Support Area, located south of the Command Center Area.

"We've squeezed them, we've sanctioned them, we've tried diplomacy, we've tried agreements, they broke agreements," Rubin said. "Yes, everybody's failed, but it's a pretty tough problem."
In late December, the UN Security Council (UNSC) adopted a set of stringent sanctions drafted by the U.S. which cut exports of diesel, gasoline and other oil products by nearly 90 percent. This is the tenth major sanctions resolution imposed by the UNSC on North Korea since 2006. North Korea has called it "an act of war."

Ex-Soros financier accused of raping 4th woman in penthouse sex dungeon

A fourth woman has filed a lawsuit accusing Howard Rubin (left), a former portfolio manager of George Soros (right), of brutalizing her in his Manhattan penthouse sex dungeon. (Facebook/Reuters)

A fourth woman has filed a lawsuit accusing former Soros Fund portfolio manager Howard Rubin of brutalizing her in his Manhattan penthouse sex dungeon, saying he ignored her repeated use of their agreed-upon safe word, “pineapples,” during an S&M session.
The woman, who has requested anonymity in her $7 million Manhattan Supreme Court suit as a rape victim, met Rubin through a friend in November 2015.
The pal set up a date between the then-60-year-old Rubin and the 20-year-old woman at the Russian Tea Room in Manhattan, the suit says. The woman was told she’d be paid $2,000 for dinner and drinks, but that she would not be required to have sex.
Rubin plied the young escort with pricey glasses of Don Julio 1942 Anejo tequila and then presented her with a nondisclosure agreement that said she could be sued for up to $1 million if she disclosed their relationship, according to court papers.
Rubin — whose high-stakes investing for billionaire George Soros was featured in the best-selling books “Liar’s Poker” and “The Big Short” — then invited the woman to his apartment at the luxury Metropolitan Tower.
At the penthouse pad, the married Rubin allegedly served his mistress a drugged drink and ushered her into his “dungeon-like ‘toy room,'” a 300-square-foot space with “ropes and toys to tie people up with, and electrocuting devices, and other devices,” the suit says.
She allowed Rubin to tie her wrists after he “explained that he would go easy on her, and that she had a safe word: pineapples,” the suit says.

Trump’s insane? Democrats the party of lies, sex and rape

 

In this Nov. 25, 2014, file photo, people watch as stores burn in Ferguson, Mo. The one-year anniversary of the shooting of Michael Brown, which sparked months of nationwide protests and launched the “Black Lives Matter” movement, was on Sunday, ... more >

Print

By Cheryl K. Chumley - The Washington Times - Tuesday, January 9, 2018

ANALYSIS/OPINION:
There’s an old biblical principle that goes like this: Don’t try and pull the speck from another’s eye without first removing the log from your own.
Democrats, on an all-courts-press to paint President Donald Trump as a mental nutcase, would do well to remember this adage.
It’s not as if Democrats were the sanest people on planet earth. Think Black Lives Matter wielding baseball bats in the streets.
But it’s this, from Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Dem on the House Intelligence Committee, who said during a nationally televised CNN interview: “We have a seriously flawed human being in the Oval Office.”
Hmm.
He also said, as Politico noted: “I don’t think there is anyone in Congress, frankly, of either party who does not concur at least privately with those observations and concerns.”
Well frankly, this whole line of mental instability aimed at the president is both weak and tiresome.
“New scrutiny for Trump’s mental fitness after book, tweets,” The Hill blasted in a headline, on the heels of the widely talked about salacious reporting of “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” by Michael Wolff.
And then this, from Newsweek: “Trump Could Destroy the Entire Human Species, Says Yale Psychiatrist Who Warned Congress Members.”
And the latest, this, from CNNPolitics: “Trump physical unlikely to shed light on mental fitness.”
Give it a rest, left.
There’s enough in the Democratic Party to wonder about your own sanity level. Can you say Bill Clinton, purported rapist, admitted adulterer?
Clinton was ultimately impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice in 1998, but saved from Senate conviction by party loyalists.
Hillary Clinton continues to face fire for alleged pay-for-play schemes involving her work while secretary at the State Department and simultaneous affiliation with the Clinton Foundation, and for the curious Uranium One dealings with Russia she helped shape while serving under Barack Obama. And Trump’s the one facing collusion claims?
Right.
Eric Holder — the same guy some in the Democratic Party now see as a possible presidential candidate in the coming years — was once held in contempt of Congress for stymying the Fast and Furious investigation. And about that whole Fast and Furious thing in the first place — imagine what would have befallen a Republican who ran guns south of the border, guns that ultimately were found at the scene of a Border Patrol agent’s shooting death. The media, the mouthpiece for the left, would still be howling for GOP heads.
Let’s not forget it was Holder’s leftist leanings that provided him justification to spy on the press, as well.
Then there’s Obamacare.
You can keep your plan and your doctor, anyone?
We need to pass it to find out what’s in it, anyone?
We passed Obamacare due to “stupidity of the American voter,” anyone?
There’s the leftist-led IRS targeting of tea party-type groups. There are the ongoing and escalating leftist-led Hollywood’s Harvey Weinstein-type sexual scandals. There are the similarly egregious sexual scandals in media that have left many on the left in the lurch, either embarrassed or outright fired. Are these the acts of the mentally fit?
This is not to say scandal doesn’t hit the ideological right. In fact, Republicans have been tainted by many of the same acts of corruption that have marked the Democrats.
But it is to say that calling out Trump for mental instability because he speaks tough on foreign leaders, or fails to soften his rhetoric on Twitter, or outright engages in public spats with those who insult him or his family, is not only hypocritical. It’s also disingenuous.
After all, in a contest of mental fitness that compares, say, a liar, a rapist and Trump, most sane-minded would choose Option Three, the president — a frequent tweeter who happens to have a bulldog approach to politicking.
Democrats ought to look to their own camp to root out the nut jobs. There’s plenty there, it would seem, to keep the psychiatrists busy.

Judge dismisses case against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his sons

Judge dismisses case against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his sons

| Las Vegas

It started four years ago, when Cliven Bundy and his sons refused to pay federal grazing fees and stared down government agents in an armed standoff outside their Nevada ranch.

The Bundys dared the federal government to arrest them. The government did, charging them with a range of felonies.

On Monday, a federal judge in Las Vegas set them free.

The decision left federal prosecutors swallowing another defeat at the hands of a family whose defiance has become a rallying cry for Westerners who believe the federal government has no business managing public land. Four times now — in high-profile cases in Nevada and Oregon — the Bundy family and its allies have beaten the federal government in court.

For the latest showdown, supporters set up banners and signs on Las Vegas Boulevard. One drove from Montana to provide Facebook updates for devotees of the cause.

At least 100 Bundy backers filled the courtroom Monday. Some wore shirts with American flag motifs. Others carried pocket Constitutions in their button-down shirts. More than a few wore cowboy boots.

Their heroes sat looking up at U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro. Cliven Bundy, 71, wore a jailhouse jumpsuit. His son Ryan, 44, who led a large group of supporters in prayer before entering the courtroom, removed his cowboy hat. Another son, Ammon, 42, and a militia member, Ryan Payne, barely moved.

It was their moment.

Navarro rebuked federal prosecutors — using the words "flagrant" and "reckless" to describe how they withheld evidence from the defense — before saying "that the universal sense of justice has been violated" and dismissing the charges.

Supporters dabbed their eyes with tissues. Outside in the hall, there were cheers.

The four defendants were charged with threatening a federal officer, carrying and using a firearm, and engaging in conspiracy. The case had once looked like a slam-dunk to some.

The images that had made the Bundys heroes to some — armed supporters facing down federal agents as contractors with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management tried to seize cattle — seemed to be compelling evidence.

Monday's dismissal was hinted at last month when Navarro ordered a mistrial. But she offered prosecutors a chance to make their case for why she should grant another trial.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Steven Myhre wrote in his brief that the government had shared 1.5 terabytes of information with defendants and noted that it was "by far the largest review and disclosure operation in this [U.S. attorney's office] history."

Myrhe also argued the government needed to protect some witnesses from leaks that might lead to threats, so it "culled the database with witness protection in mind."

"Unprecedented database volume and witness concerns aside, the government never let these obstacles stand in the way of diligently working to fulfill its discovery obligations," he wrote.

Navarro didn't buy it and shredded the government for a "reckless disregard for Constitutional obligations." She said she was troubled by the prosecution's tardiness in delivering information about the government's placing of surveillance cameras and snipers outside the ranch.

After the decision, Cliven Bundy emerged from an elevator at the courthouse dressed in jeans, button-down shirt and gray blazer.

"I'm not used to being free, put it that way," he said. "I've been a political prisoner for right at 700 days today. I come into this courtroom an innocent man and I'm going to leave as an innocent man."

He also seemed ready to resume his role as a leader on the issue of local control of federal land. It's a decades-long fight for Bundy, who first tussled with the Bureau of Land Management in the 1990s by refusing to pay grazing fees for his cattle using federal land.

As he and his wife, Carol, walked out into a spitting rain, hundreds of supporters cheered. A "Not Guilty" sticker had been stuck to his lapel. The rancher took off his hat and waved it to the crowd before posing for pictures.

He criticized Clark County commissioners, the Clark County sheriff and Nevada's governor for not coming to his defense.

"My defense is a 15-second defense: I graze my cattle only on Clark County, Nev., land and I have no contract with the federal government," he said. "This court has no jurisdiction or authority over this matter. And I've put up with this court in America as a political prisoner for two years."

His attorney, Bret Whipple, said there would be a news conference Tuesday in front of Las Vegas police headquarters to talk about control of public land.

U.S. Atty. Dayle Elieson of Nevada, who was appointed by Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions last week, released a short statement after the decision. "We respect the court's ruling and will make a determination about the next appropriate steps."

Ian Bartrum, a law professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said that while the court decision was a defeat for the Justice Department, it could be seen as a victory for Trump administration policy to shrink national monuments and push for local control of federal land.

"Most of Trump's base are Bundy supporters," Bartrum said in an email. "This plays right into the larger Trump narrative about the Swamp versus the People. I think you might be right to say they aren't that unhappy … and will likely make some political hay out of it."

Advocates for federal enforcement of land regulations were quick to criticize the government's handling of the case.

"Federal prosecutors clearly bungled this case and let the Bundys get away with breaking the law," Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. "The Bundys rallied a militia to mount an armed insurrection against the government. The failure of this case will only embolden this violent and racist anti-government movement that wants to take over our public lands."

Twice last year, Las Vegas juries acquitted or deadlocked on felony charges against Bundy supporters. Then Ammon and Ryan Bundy each beat federal felony charges in a case stemming from a 41-day standoff in 2016 at an Oregon wildlife preserve