Eleven GOP members of Congress led by Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) have written a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Attorney John Huber, and FBI Director Christopher Wray – asking them to investigate former FBI Director James Comey, Hillary Clinton and others – including FBI lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, for a laundry list of potential crimes surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Recall that Sessions paired special prosecutor John Huber with DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz – falling short of a second Special Counsel, but empowering Horowitz to fully investigate allegations of FBI FISA abuse with subpoena power and other methods he was formerly unable to utilize.
The GOP letter’s primary focus appears to be James Comey, while the charges for all include obstruction, perjury, corruption, unauthorized removal of classified documents, contributions and donations by foreign nationals and other allegations.
The letter also demands that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein “be recused from any examination of FISA abuse,” and recommends that “neither U.S. Attorney John Huber nor a special counsel (if appointed) should report to Rosenstein.”
The letter refers the following individuals for the following conduct:
James Comey – obstruction, perjury, corruption, stealing public property or records, gathering transmitting or losing defense information, unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents, false statements.
- “Comey’s decision not to seek charges against Clinton’s misconduct suggests improper investigative conduct, potentially motivated by a political agenda.”
- The letter calls Comey out for leaking his confidential memos to the press. “In light of the fact that four of the seven memos were classified, it would appear that former Director Comey leaked classified information when sharing these memos…“
- Comey “circulated a draft statement” of the FBI’s decision to exonerate Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information – a conclusion reached before the agency had interviewed key witnesses. “At that point, 17 interviews with potential witnesses had not taken place, including with Clinton and her chief of staff…”
- The letter also seeks clarification on “material inconsistencies between the description of the FBI’s relationship with Mr. Steele that you [then FBI Director Comey] did provide in your briefing and information contained in Justice Department documents made available to the Committee only after the briefing.”
Hillary Clinton – contributions and donations by foreign nationals
- “A lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid Washington firm Fusion GPS to conduct research that led to the Steele dossier…”
- “Accordingly, for disguising payments to Fusion GPS on mandatory disclosures to the Federal Election Commission, we refer Hillary Clinton to DOJ for potential violation(s) of 52 USC 30121 and 52 USC 30101”
Loretta Lynch – obstruction, corruption
- “We raise concerns regarding her decision to threaten with reprisal the former FBI informant who tried to come forward in 2016 with insight into the Uranium One deal.”
- Of note, this refers to longtime CIA and FBI undercover informant William D. Campbell, who came forward with evidence of bribery schemes involving Russian nuclear officials, an American trucking company, and efforts to route money to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI).
Andrew McCabe – false statements, perjury, obstruction
- “During the internal Hillary Clinton investigation, Mr. McCabe “lacked candor — including under oath — on multiple occasions,” the letter reads. “That is a fireable offense, and Mr. Sessions said that career, apolotical employees at the F.B.I. and Justice Department agreed that Mr. McCabe should be fired.”
- “The DOJ Office of the Inspector General recently released a February 2018 misconduct report… confirming four instances of McCabe’s lack of candor, including three instances under oath, as well as the conclusion that McCabe’s decision to confirm the existence of the Clinton Foundation Investigation through an anonymously sourced quite violated the FBI’s and DOJ’s media policy and constituted misconduct.”
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page – obstruction, corruption,
- “We raise concerns regarding their interference in the Hillary Clinton investigation regarding her use of a personal email server.”
Well, if there is a request for an investigation, they must all be guilty. Isn’t that how the logic goes?
Wait this is all just old news, in liberal speak “we skate with Hillary”.
Warm up the nooses.
@Deplorable Me: See this one today lol lol lol https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/04/17/br…
Ten was the most republican representatives DeSantis could round up to sign his list of demands? That’s actually kind of pathetic.
@Greg: The democrats wouldnt loan them a pen after the one they had ran out of ink 😉
@kitt: As I said on that topic, Trump plays hardball on issues, the left and establishment Republicans panic and get the runs because they are only familiar with the bend over and grab your ankles method of negotiation. When the opposition realizes they need the United States more than the United States needs them, they come to terms.
@Greg: Pathetic is why calling for these investigations is even necessary. The Obama administration was the most scandal riddled, corrupt administration in US history.
@Deplorable Me: The Chicago style politics is showing. Unlike Obamas plan to stop from school to prison there is no such program to prevent these ABC agencies from appointment to prison.
@kitt:
Actually when you consider the tactics being used such as weaponizing law enforcement and intelligence assets for political reasons and the whole “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” theme with a MSM acting as the propaganda machine all to overthrow a Constitutionally elected sitting President, it’s more like Leninist, Stalinist, and Hitlerist.
@another vet: I thought we were supposed to be investigating collusion with the Russians. There is evidence of collusion with these people. Why is Mueller not investigating that?
@Randy: Mueller has given up on that boondoggle. There never was and never will be any evidence of that and, besides, there has been so much illegal investigation done, nothing they found would be admissible in court anyway. So, the scalp hunting continues in other directions.
@Randy: The evidence of collusion lies with one side and that’s the side who started it all. Kim.com has now twice offered to give Mueller evidence that Seth Rich leaked the DNC emails. Assange has all but confirmed that more than once. Multiple independent IT experts, including those who worked for the NSA, have all said it was an inside job. Why hasn’t Mueller met with him or any of the others to confirm or disprove the assertion in order to get the truth? Because he doesn’t want the truth. Poedesta was given advanced notice to file documents to avoid breaking the law. He skated by with a day to spare. Was Manafort or anyone else given the same consideration? Mueller is there to do the bidding for the swamp and to provide cover. Either that, or he is exceptionally good at operating a sting operation, that being one to nail the coupsters.
@Randy. #9:
What makes you think Mueller isn’t?
Michael Cohen on Twitter, January 10, 2017, in response to the Steele Dossier report that he had traveled to Prague in 2016 for a secret pre-election meeting with sanctioned Russian oligarch Konstantin Kosachev:
From The Hill, April 13, 2018: Mueller can prove Cohen made secret trip to Prague before the election
Today, April 19, 2018: Trump attorney Michael Cohen withdraws libel lawsuits over Russia dossier
Most likely because a truthful report doesn’t constitute libel.
@Greg: Unproven accusations isn’t proof, no passport stamp unverified meeting with a Russian rich guy…The Clintons have been hanging with theses same people for years. Konstantin Kosachev in 2010 was the head of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house, the State Duma, now , the chairman of the Russian upper house’s Foreign Affairs Committee. Any meetings would be normal for any campaign, unless there were donations to a certain slush fund for political favors.
Comey’s memos prove Trump never tried to impede the investigation. In fact, he wanted to find out if anyone on his team DID collude. Never threatened Comey in any way. Wanted Comey to investigate the “dossier” allegations to prove they were false. Much of the memos contradict Comey’s own book.
Comey thought Trump was such a moral cretin, yet he wanted to keep working for him. So, is Comey lying about his opinion of Trump or is Comey a moral whore?
@Deplorable Me, #14:
…according to Donald Trump’s latest Twitter post:
…which any reasonable person realizes is utter nonsense, owing to the fact that the earliest memo was dated Jan. 7, 2017 and the latest memo was dated April 11, 2017. Obviously the period of time when obstruction of justice could be an issue is not confined to that brief period. It continues through the present date.
Here are the memos themselves, which were leaked to Associated Press about as quickly as Congressional republicans got their hands on them.
I guess they’ll just have to wait to find out what evidence of collusion and obstruction Mueller might have along with the rest of us. For obvious reasons.
@Greg: The memos given to the AP were de-classified and partially redacted, unlike what Comey back doored through his pal that had zero security clearance to see or leak them. I see repeat behavior like Clintons attorneys going through her emails. DWS doing no background check on her Paki lover.
The list is not long enough!
@kitt, #16:
According to the WSJ’s sources, Comey deleted the classified content from one of the two memos before it was shared; the other wasn’t classified at all until after Comey left the bureau, when it was tagged “confidential.”
That’s not quite up there with Trump spilling highly classified information to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak the day after he fired Comey, is it?
@Greg: You are still ignorant on how classified information works. If you want to be taken even 1% serious, you should stop posting on matters of which you know little or nothing.
A Secret level security clearance was a requirement for my MOS. I handled classified communications on a regular basis.
@Greg: Well, you should have listened. If you did listen, you forgot quite a lot. What is that syndrome called where older people forget a lot? Or maybe you just were concerned with the very low level of information that you were dealing with. Some of us still have security clearances. If you are going to continue to post on classified information and want to be taken seriously, you may want to revisit the how and why of classified information.
@Greg: My point was Dems just dont seem to know how to handle classified things and computers, they seem to be a pile of FUs or ignore rules they find to personally troublesome.
@Greg: c
Comey, like Hillary, does not get to decide what is classified and what isn’t. His memos, generated on FBI time a d equipment, belongs to the FBI and THEY determine what gets shared.
My God, there’s something that needs to be reviewed.
@kitt: They know a hammer shuts them off though, don’t they?
@Deplorable Bill:
Crude but effective, bleach-bit gets it sanitary? Like with a cloth.
@kitt, #22:
And my point was that if Comey deleted the classified content from the first message he shared, while the second wasn’t classified at all until later, there’s not much left in the way of an accusation.
Trump, on the other hand, gave the Russian Ambassador and Russian Foreign Minister information concerning an ongoing ISIS laptop bomb program that had been provided in confidence to the U.S. by a foreign ally, potentially putting their own source in danger of exposure and death. It’s not hard to guess who the foreign ally was.
From The Times of Israel, 20 May 2017 – ‘Horrified’ Israeli intel officials ‘were shouting at US counterparts’ over Trump leak
@Greg: You just keep proving your ignorance on who, how and what of classified information. You just keep repeating the same things over and over hoping that it will be true. In the sane world, Greg, that doesn’t work! Post on something you know about. It is quite evident that you do not know anything about classified information that is fact.
@Greg: #25 Comey did it as a self serving act not for any other reason and his own book is proof he is only for Comey. Perhaps he can join Hillarys new coven.
@Randy, #26:
According to the Wall Street Journal’s sources—which are apparently the only sources for any of this story—Comey shared no information that was classified at the time.
I don’t know what my own understanding of classification protocol—or supposed lack thereof—has to do with that simple, factual observation. There’s what the article actually said, and then there’s Trump’s nonsensical Twitter spin about it. I tend to reject the nonsense.
@Greg: Who is the FBI person that reviewed the memos and declared them safe to share (that was not named Comey)?
@Greg: And who at the WSJ is qualified to determine if the memos were classified? You continue to show you ignorance! A peeling potatoes MOS is not a qualification to determine classification of documents.
@Randy, #30:
Nobody. The Wall Street Journal article was mentioned in reference to Kitt’s “back doored” comment in #16:
The WSJ made no determination about the classification of anything. They’re simply reporting what their source told them. If you’re going to reject part of what the WSJ was told you might as well reject it all, which is fine by me. Trump’s Twitter accusation that Comey leaked classified information then evaporates. Based on a careful reading of the article, it made little sense to begin with.
@Greg: again Greg, who declassified the memos? Comey? Due to where the memos originated, Comey didn’t have the authority to do that.
@Randy: You are wasting your time. Remember how he told Old Trooper, who actually fought in Tora Bora, how easy it would have been to get OBL in Tora Bora because he studied the maps on Google?
Things that Comey made up are classified, because Trump didn’t declassify them? Therefore, he broke the law?
One cannot fail to appreciate that he has proved his point beyond the shadow of a doubt, and with geometric logic.
@Greg:
Comey is releasing what he says constitutes private conversations with the President of the United States. HE doesn’t decide what is and is not classified, particularly since he has proven himself to be biased, partisan and an idiot.
You liberals don’t seem to think laws and rules apply to anyone but those you want to contain and restrict. In actuality, they apply to everyone, across the board, no matter if they are liberal or not.
@Greg: Even wikipedia knows “presidential communications privilege” As an attorney he should have known those memos were classified. You just cannot blab private conversations with the President to any one.
@kitt, #36:
Congressional republicans forced the recent release of Comey’s memos, as I recall. Comey had divulged what was said earlier, after his firing, when he was called before the Senate to testify. They asked for his testimony, and he complied.
@Greg: I believe that Comey released his memos a long time before Congress asked to look a them. Comey released the classified documents, no one else. You just can not stop displaying your ignorance!
@Greg:
Do you not recall Comey giving his memos to a university pal of his to be leaked to the media and become the impetus for the creation of the naming of a special council?
Comey had released nothing as of May 12, 2017, when Trump taunted him with a Twitter post: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
Comey provided classified material to nobody. Initially, none of the memos were classified, and none had been shared outside of the FBI. Subsequent to his firing on May 9, 2017, certain content in one memo was tagged as confidential, but that material was redacted by Comey before the information was made available through a friend to a member of the press.
Comey knows how things work. He knows the relevant laws. Trump messed with the wrong man.
@Greg: All All private communications with the President are confidential, Comey knows that but made a choice to ignore, no matter how you or your media writhe Comey is totally a unprofessional poo poo head.
Says who? Once Trump had fired Comey, their relationship as subordinate and superior ceased to exist. On what authority can Trump order a private citizen not to tell his own side of the story? Particularly when Trump kept attacking him? The memos might be argued to somehow be government property, even though they were Comey’s own words, but Comey’s knowledge of what happened certainly wasn’t.
@Greg: You are not only showing your ignorance of what is classified information but who can release of classified information. Now you are approaching stupidity!
@Randy: A former CIA officer who was charged with unlawful possession of secrets but he was no longer CIA so what ever he knew, if he felt, was just ok for him to blabber well according to Greg.
@Greg:
Jeez, Greg. What difference does that make? When the memos were created Comey was FBI Director and Trump was President. The confidentiality of their conversations doesn’t end simply because Comey’s employment status changes. In fact, it probably becomes more critical, in light of the cancer Obama implanted within the DOJ and FBI.
When an-ex employee wants to write their story, the government has to approve the content. Further, Trump only attacked Comey after Comey attacked HIM.
Comey admits he tainted his evaluation of Hillary’s actions with politics. I don’t how much clearer Comey has to make his partisan position for you to understand it.
@Deplorable Me: Greg just digs a deeper hole. His arguments are similar to that of a small child. I do not know what MOS Greg had, but with this understanding of the handling of classified material, he should have spent his military days in the brig!
@Deplorable Me, #45:
Evidently it has ended, given that Comey has told his side of the story. Thanks to Congressional republicans, the memos themselves are now available to anyone who cares to read them. No doubt Comey appreciates their assistance, not to mention Trump’s Twitter posts, which are undoubtedly increasing his book sales.
@Randy: His justification for what those he supports does is the same as their view of their privileges in this world; the application and relevance of laws are relative to what they will allow or restrict and how it affects their political goals. The ends always justifies the means.
Trump legal team delays filing complaints against Comey until ‘the appropriate time’
That’s what they were saying last June, but the ‘appropriate’ time has never come—mainly because there are no laws that James Comey has actually broken. That’s more than can be said of at least one of Trump’s legal representatives, and of several who formerly held important campaign and administration positions.
@Greg: Comey, under oath, swore that his “memos” were his “personal document[s],” and not a “government document[s].”
Now that the actual documents themselves have been released, not only does the fact that Comey contemporaneously emailed these to other government officials make them “government documents,” but critically, Comey’s own designations of the documents makes them “Official” documents. Apart from some of the “SECRET” designations, Comey personally and specifically designated some of the documents as “FOUO,” which means “For Official Use Only.” Therefore, Comey’s Senate Judiciary testimony that any of his memo documents were his “personal documents” and not “government” documents can be defined as perjury. Dude this is public record, not something some rightwing new site made up, we have him recorded while giving testimony. You dont have to like it but denying it is pointless.