Free Republic

Somehow the former commander-in-chief is largely absent from the political spying drama. President Donald Trump tweets today: “Reports are there was indeed at least one FBI representative implanted, for political purposes, into my campaign for president. It took place very early on, and long before the phony Russia Hoax became a ‘hot’ Fake News story. If true - all time biggest political scandal!” And what does the man who was serving at the time as the FBI’s ultimate boss have to say about all this? Perhaps it’s a good moment to get the whole story from our 44th President. He...

"John Brennan is panicking. He has disgraced himself, he has disgraced the Country, he has disgraced the entire Intelligence Community. He is the one man who is largely responsible for the destruction of American’s faith in the Intelligence Community and in some people at the........top of the FBI. Brennan started this entire debacle about President Trump. We now know that Brennan had detailed knowledge of the (phony) Dossier...he knows about the Dossier, he denies knowledge of the Dossier, he briefs the Gang of 8 on the Hill about the Dossier, which.......they then used to start an investigation about Trump. It...

On December 29, 2016, the Obama Administration – with three weeks remaining in its term – issued harsh sanctions against Russia over supposed election interference. Two compounds in the United States were closed and 35 Russian diplomats were ordered to leave the country. Russia responded by calling the actions “Cold War déjà vu.” In the two years that have elapsed since, it has been learned that the “intelligence” that formed the basis for the sanctions was beyond dubious. A single unverified “dossier” compiled by an ex-British spy with no discernable connections to Russia was shopped to FISA judges and the...

Four years ago, the Observer published my first article entitled All the President’s Muses. It was triggered by this picture, taken in the White House after the Benghazi murders. My concern was that President Barack Obama surrounded himself with former federal prosecutors who would do anything to win. . . . And, here they are again. This triumvirate of cover-up experts is central to the Obama White House arm of the conspiracy to surveil the Trump campaign, the phony FISA warrant, “unmaskings” of Americans in the Trump campaign and denials of information to the incoming president of the United States....

Loretta Lynch’s Justice Department and James Comey’s FBI worked together with the Hillary Clinton campaign to entrap Donald Trump and associates — including his eldest son — prior to the 2016 presidential election, according to records and testimony of federal law enforcement insiders. One high ranking official in the Justice Department called it a sweeping “highly illegal” scheme to ensure Hillary Clinton’s election to the White House. “This was clearly a scheme using Justice (Department) resources and State (Department) resources to get the Russian lawyer into the United States,” one Justice Department insider said. “Who has the power to do...

In a procedural ruling Friday before the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, former British spy Christopher Steele was ordered to appear for a videotaped deposition in London on June 18 for ongoing civil litigation brought against Buzzfeed by a Russian technology executive, Aleksej Gubarev. A last-ditch effort by Buzzfeed's legal team was denied today in their efforts to expand and question Steele about "the dossier as a whole" instead of a more limited area of questioning in the ongoing civil litigation in the UK. In the 15-page ruling obtained and reviewed by Fox News, Mr. Justice Jay wrote...

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) warned Republican lawmakers on Friday not to expose the identity of top-secret FBI informant, saying that to do so would be "irresponsible" — and potentially illegal. "It would be at best irresponsible, and at worst potentially illegal, for members of Congress to use their positions to learn the identity of an FBI source for the purpose of undermining the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in our election," Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. "Anyone who is entrusted with our nation’s highest secrets should act with the gravity and seriousness...

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz says he has finished his long-awaited report detailing his review of the FBI and DOJ’s Hillary Clinton investigation during the 2016 presidential election. In a letter to members of Congress on Wednesday, Horowitz does not say when the review will be officially released to the FBI, DOJ and congressional committees. But the inspector general said he has provided a draft report to the Department and the FBI, and requested that they review it to identify any information that should be protected from disclosure. A portion of the report on McCabe had already been released...

Here is the Russian Collusion "A" Team who coordinated Brennan, Hillary, and the CIA. Michael Joseph Morell is a former American intelligence analyst. He served as the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency as well as its acting director twice, first in 2011 and then from 2012 to 2013. From July 1, 2011, to September 6, 2011, he served his first stint as acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency, replacing Leon Panetta who was named as Secretary of Defense. On November 9, 2012, Morell once again became acting director after the resignation of David Petraeus, following a sex...

Report: John Brennan Worked ‘Pee Dossier’ into Obama’s Daily Briefing, Called Steele ‘Credible Source’ (Full Title) A new report alleges that former CIA Director John Brennan included claims from the dubious Steele dossier into President Barack Obama’s Presidential Daily Brief — without disclosing the source of the allegations. “Brennan put some of the dossier material into the PDB [presidential daily briefing] for Obama and described it as coming from a ‘credible source,’ which is how they viewed Steele,” a source close to the House probe told Real Clear Investigations reporter Paul Sperry. “But they never corroborated his sources,” the source...

Today’s Campaign Update (Because The Campaign Never Ends) It was a dirty job, but somebody had to do it. – Texas Congressman and former state Appeals Court Justice Louie Gohmert published a devastating criticism of ex-FBI Director Robert Mueller on Tuesday. Those of you who still believe that the Witch Hunter in Chief is some sort of sterling individual with an unassailable background of defending truth, justice and the American Way should take half an hour out of your day today and read it. It will disabuse you forever of those silly notions. I was already aware of most of...

... Brennan dimly understood that there would be hell to pay if it came out that Hillary partisans in the U.S. government were spying on her opponent’s campaign, making use of opposition research that she had purchased. But Brennan, who was auditioning to be Hillary’s CIA director and choking on his anger at the thought of Trump as president, couldn’t help himself apparently. From April 2016 to July 2016, according to leaked stories in the British press, he assembled a multi-agency taskforce that served as the beginnings of a counterintelligence probe into the Trump campaign. During these months, he was...

The deep state had stolen so much, held and won so many elections, but now there is a change in the commander and chief. Unplanned, not predicted Donald Trump wins the presidency and the pedophiles, fraudsters, felons, liars, of the secret socities that thought they couldn’t lose, lost! Hillary Clinton isn’t president, but there are many who are willing to fall before they let her fall. Follow the money…

Two senior House Republicans are accusing the Justice Department of being behind “anonymous attacks” in the press targeting a House Intelligence Committee GOP staffer who helped author the committee’s well-publicized memo alleging surveillance abuse by the FBI and DOJ during the 2016 election. The same House staffer is also a driving force behind the latest Russia records standoff. "I would have a lot more respect for DOJ or House committee Democrats if they would take out their frustrations on members of Congress, and leave staffers alone,” South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told...

As I will explain, the widespread notion that Russia and Trump colluded to beat Hillary has long been demonstrable bunk. What seems more clear each day is that there was collusion between certain members of the U.S. and British intelligence communities to spy on the Trump campaign. This may explain, in large part, the reluctance of the Department of Justice to reveal what it knows publicly. After all -- with rare exceptions -- the two countries’ intelligence services have long had important information gathering and sharing agreements, and exposure of this may harm the traditional reciprocal relationship. Whether the British...

Then-Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid released a letter in the heat of the 2016 election alleging Trump-Russia collusion even though the CIA director at the time urged him not to, according to a person familiar with their conversation. Mr. Reid’s Aug. 27 letter to the FBI appears to mark the first time a Democrat officially accused President’ Trump’s campaign of colluding with the Russian government to hack his party’s computers. The letter has come to represent for conservatives the “deep state” — Obama loyalists leaking unproven allegations to the press against Mr. Trump and his people to ruin the campaign,...

With Congress on the verge of holding the US Department of Justice and the FBI in contempt for repeated refusals to provide unredacted documents related to the Agency's efforts to spy on the Republican presidential campaign and Administration, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein ardently defended the action. "Unredacting these documents would permit members of Congress to discover the methods and the identities of Agency personnel and outside parties who participated in this vital operation," Rosenstein alleged. "This would have a 'chilling' effect on future operations of a similar nature and, as such, would pose a severe limitation on our power...

"DEVELOPING: A major new front is opening in the political espionage scandal. In summer 2016, Brennan with his FBI liaison Strzok, along with help from Kerry @ State, were trying to set Russian espionage traps for minor players in the Trump campaign through cultivated intel assets" As we reported in March, Nunes and the House Intelligence Committee was investigating the Obama State Department under John Kerry for its involvement in the dissemination of the unverified "Steele Dossier," along with a second anti-Trump dossier written by Clinton confidant Cody Shearer. Nunes referred to this as "Phase 2" of his committee's probe...

But in keeping with Grassley's style, which has so often misled his opponents into overconfidence, you have to read between the lines to see where he is heading. The end point: uncovering the plot to frame General Flynn for lying to the FBI, including likely criminal acts by senior members of the FBI. [snip] The killer bombshell is the final paragraph, in which Grassley at long last reveals the name of the other FBI agent present when Peter Strzok interviewed General Flynn about his conversation with Russian ambassador Kislyak and requests an interview with him by committee staff members: As...

DEVELOPING: A major new front is opening in the political espionage scandal. In summer 2016, Brennan with his FBI liaison Strzok, along with help from Kerry @ State, were trying to set Russian espionage traps for minor players in the Trump campaign through cultivated intel assets