Free Republic

President Trump on Monday hailed a new report from the Justice Department inspector general, claiming it showed FBI officials attempted an “an overthrow of government” by investigating his 2016 presidential campaign. “This was an overthrow of government, this was an attempted overthrow and a lot of people were in on it and they got caught, they got caught red-handed,” Trump said in the Cabinet Room at the White House during a roundtable event on education. “I think I'm going to put this down as one of our great achievements. Because what we found and what we saw — never, ever...

Statements just hit the wires in the past 15 minutes… Attorney General Bill Barr released a statement on Monday that undermined the Department of Justice Inspector General’s report that the FBI had sufficient evidence to investigate the Trump campaign. “The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken.” “It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory.” U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Barr had appointed to...

Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz’s report on alleged FBI misconduct in surveilling the Trump campaign found that the FBI “altered” evidence that falsely cast former Trump presidential campaign adviser Carter Page as a Russian spy. The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis and Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway wrote that the report “found that the FBI falsely claimed to the FISA Court not only that Carter Page was a Russian agent, but also falsely claimed that an unnamed intelligence agency had told the FBI that Page was ‘not a source’ in their efforts to surveil and curtail Russian intelligence...

FULL TITLE: IG Report: FBI Official Higher Up Than Peter Strzok Involved in Opening “Crossfire Hurricane” to Spy on Trump ============================================================= The DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz finally released his report on FISA abuses on Monday. The report revealed what we knew to be true all along — the FBI defrauded the FISA court and purposely omitted exculpatory information from the FISA judges in order to obtain FOUR FISA warrants on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page. According to Horowitz’s report, former FBI counterintelligence chief Peter Strzok wasn’t the sole or even highest-level decision maker in opening the CI investigation into...

The Justice Department inspector general’s report into the Russia collusion investigation lays out incontrovertible evidence that the FBI misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court through false information and omissions, according to sources familiar with its findings. The evidence that the judges were misled is so sweeping that it could provide grounds, if Attorney General William Barr chooses, to withdraw the FBI’s application for the surveillance warrants that began in October 2016 to target ex-Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, the sources added. Such a move, while mostly legally symbolic since the probe is long since closed, would still amount to a...

No, it’s not a “bombshell” that will satisfy Sean Hannity and his “Tick-tock” crew. Michael Horowitz was never going to deliver anything remotely like that, given his bias towards protecting the Department that pays his salary and the constraints under which he is required to perform his job. The report released today at 1:00 ET contains no criminal referrals. Not one. It finds “no political bias” in the process that led the Obama-era coup cabal within the FBI and DOJ to apply for a FISA warrent to enable it to spy on members of the Trump Campaign, even though the...

RUSH: Yeah, I know it’s hard to watch. It’s very hard to watch. You know why this is hard to watch? I’ll tell you why it’s hard to watch. It’s hard to watch this because all of this is bogus. And yet it’s being given the imprimatur of legitimacy by virtue of the way it’s being dealt with even by friendly media and by some of the Republicans on the committee. Now, I know they’re trying to expose Nadler as not knowing what he’s doing and how to run a committee, and they’re doing a good job of that, but...

Christopher Steele, the British ex-spy and author of the anti-Trump dossier, was reportedly told that the Justice Department will release information about him that was previously blacked out in the department’s internal watchdog report on the investigation into President Trump’s 2016 campaign due on Monday. The New York Times, citing two individuals with knowledge of the situation, reported that Attorney General William Barr approved the release of the previously redacted information in Michael Horowitz’s 400-page report. The report called Steele’s heads-up unusual and said he was not given any indication of whether the information would benefit or hurt him. An...

The Justice DepartmentÂ’s internal watchdog will release a highly anticipated report Monday that is expected to reject President Donald TrumpÂ’s claims that the Russia investigation was illegitimate and tainted by political bias from FBI leaders. But it is also expected to document errors during the investigation that may animate Trump supporters. The report, as described by people familiar with its findings, is expected to conclude there was an adequate basis for opening one of the most politically sensitive investigations in FBI history and one that Trump has denounced as a witch hunt. It began in secret during TrumpÂ’s 2016 presidential...

Open investigations of FBI employees by the Justice Department’s Inspector General (IG) have about doubled in recent years and, as far as available records go, there have never been so many investigations of this kind. The Office of IG Michael Horowitz had 104 “open criminal or administrative investigations of alleged misconduct related to FBI employees” as of Sept. 30, according to its latest semi-annual report to Congress (pdf). The number fell from 112 open investigations just six months earlier, but still fit into a heightened trend. In fiscal 2018, the IG reported 84 and 93 open investigations, respectively. In the...

Attorney General Barr is rejecting a key finding in the Justice Department’s inspector general’s report on the Russia probe, The Washington Post reported Monday. People familiar with the matter told The Post that Barr said he does not agree with the report’s finding that the FBI had enough intelligence to initiate an investigation into the Trump campaign in July 2016. The long-awaited report from the Justice Department’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to be made public in a week. But a draft is being discussed behind the scenes, and the attorney general reportedly is not persuaded that the FBI...

Attorney General William P. Barr has told associates he disagrees with the Justice Department’s inspector general on one of the key findings in an upcoming report — that the FBI had enough information in July 2016 to justify launching an investigation into members of the Trump campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. The Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, is due to release his long-awaited findings in a week, but behind the scenes at the Justice Department, disagreement has surfaced about one of Horowitz’s central conclusions on the origins of the Russia investigation. The discord could be the...

Attorney General William P. Barr has told associates he disagrees with the Justice Department’s inspector general on one of the key findings in an upcoming report — that the FBI had enough information in July 2016 to justify launching an investigation into members of the Trump campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. The Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, is due to release his long-awaited findings in a week, but behind the scenes at the Justice Department, disagreement has surfaced about one of Horowitz’s central conclusions on the origins of the Russia investigation. The discord could be the...

Justice Department prosecutor U.S. Attorney John Durham is questioning personnel connected to the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, which awarded multiple contracts to FBI informant Stephan Halper. Halper, who was informing the bureau on Trump campaign advisors, is a central figure in the FBI’s original investigation into President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, SaraACarter.com has learned. These latest developments reveal the expansive nature of what is now a Justice Department criminal probe into the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign. The revelation also comes on the heels of DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report regarding the bureau’s investigation into the Trump...

Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee next month to testify on a forthcoming report on alleged surveillance abuse during the 2016 campaign. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who oversees the panel, announced on Monday that Horowitz will appear publicly on Dec. 11. Graham’s decision to schedule the hearing is the latest sign that Horowitz’s report is nearing its release. The GOP senator said earlier this month that he expected it within weeks. “I appreciate all the hard work by Mr. Horowitz and his team regarding the Carter Page FISA warrant application and the counterintelligence...

Department of Justice inspector general Michael Horowitz is expected to make multiple criminal referrals as part of his report based on his probe of how the FBI dug into President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, according to journalist Sara Carter. One of those criminal referrals is expected to be former FBI director James Comey, according to two sources, the report claims. House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs told Sean Hannity of Fox News that several other top government figures — such as former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe and former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — may also be found...

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s much anticipated report on his investigation into the FBI’s probe into President Trump’s campaign is expected to be made public before Thanksgiving and the outcome is alleged to contain several criminal referrals, according to sources who spoke with SaraACarter.com. Horowitz’s investigation on the bureau’s probe into the now debunked theory that Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 presidential election will more than likely result in the declassification of documents — requested by senior Republican lawmakers for more than several years. These are the same documents President Trump turned over to Attorney General...

Faced with a barrage of damaging headlines for President Donald Trump stemming from impeachment inquiry testimony, congressional Republicans are beginning to coalesce around a strategy aimed at discrediting key witnesses and taking a more confrontational stance against the Democratic-led impeachment process. Republicans on Thursday ramped up their skepticism of the testimony delivered by US diplomat Bill Taylor — which undercut White House claims Ukraine aid wasn't tied to an investigation that could help him politically — and the Senate's No. 2 Republican Sen. John Thune walked back earlier concerns he expressed about Taylor's opening statement. Republicans in the Senate have...

Sean Hannity opened his show on Thursday tonight with breaking news — Attorney General Bill Barr says Prosecutor John Durham’s investigation is now a CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION!

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is planning to introduce a resolution condemning the House Democrats' impeachment inquiry process, and argued that any articles should be dismissed in the Senate without a trial. "This resolution puts the Senate on record condemning the House. ...Here's the point of the resolution: Any impeachment vote based on this process, to me, is illegitimate, is unconstitutional, and should be dismissed in the Senate without a trial," Graham told Fox News's Sean Hannity.