Document Rjnp1j5XYojx7R9en2yE5G3Yk

Message From: Sent: To: Subject: Americans for Limited Government [media@limitgov.org] 4/17/2018 1:30:40 PM Abboud, Michael [/o=ExchangeLabs/ou=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT)/cn=Recipients/cn=b6f5af791al842fladcc088cbf9ed3ce-Abboud, Mic] James Comey admits he knew the FBI investigation of President Trump was inevitable even after he knew it was ongoing at least since Oct. 2016 Comey lied to Trump, who was about to be sworn into office to execute the nation's laws as the President, about the most important law enforcement investigation his agency was undertaking April 17, 2018 Permission to republish original op-eds and cartoons granted. James Comey admits he knew the FBI investigation of President Trump was inevitable even after he knew it was ongoing at least since Oct. 2016 By the time former FBI Director James Comey told then-President Elect Donald Trump in Jan. 2017 that he was not under investigation, the FBI was already investigating his campaign. We know that because the Steele dossier had already been used as evidence to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court warrant against the Trump campaign in Oct. 2016. The surveillance was ongoing. And per the House Select Committee on Intelligence Feb. 2018 memorandum on those 2016 FISA court applications, "Then-Director James Corney signed three FISA applications in question on behalf of the FBI. " Comey lied to Trump, who was about to be sworn into office to execute the nation's laws as the President, about the most important law enforcement investigation his agency was undertaking. Why shouldn't he have been fired? Cartoon: A Higher Ego James Comey, a legend in his own mind. Scooter Libby pardon shows Donald Trump understands Mueller is not about justice, but about getting scalps If you couldn't tell by the collective gasp from Washington D.C., late last week President Trump pardoned an innocent man, Scooter Libby. The mainstream media went crazy believing the pardon was a signal to the current Special Counsel Robert Mueller, letting him know he will pardon anyone he prosecutes. What is more important is Trump's pardon rights a wrong. Scooter Libby never leaked Valerie Plame's name, Richard Armitage did. Libby was caught up in the net of an overzealous Special Counsel that showed no interest in getting to the truth in order to take down a political enemy. Sound familiar? Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00002715-00001 PJ Media: Is DOJ Obstructing Congress in the Trump Surveillance Case? "Did Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) really have to threaten to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in contempt and to start impeachment proceedings? Apparently so. Nunes chairs the House Intelligence Committee. For almost eight months, Wray and Rosenstein stalled his request for an unredacted copy of the memo that launched the Obama administration's investigation/surveillance of the Trump campaign. Eight months. " James Comey admits he knew the FBI investigation of President Trump was inevitable even after he knew it was ongoing at least since Oct 2016 By Robert Romano "It might have been a mistake." That was former FBI Director James Comey appearing on ABC News with George Stephanopoulos that aired April 15. admitting that on Jan. 6, 2017 when he assured then President-Elect Donald Trump that he was not under FBI investigation for Russia collusion, it was very misleading. Comey had just presented Trump with the Hillary Clinton, DNC-paid for Fusion GPS-Christopher Steele dossier alleging that the President was a Russian agent who had been compromised. He says he assured Trump, "We're not investigating you, sir." Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00002715-00002 Yet Comey explained, "The general counsel of the F.B.I. had argued, `Look, it's literally true that we don't have a case open on President-elect Trump. We're looking at other people.' And-- and-- but his argument was, `There's a problem with you saying that for two reasons. First, inevitably as we move along in the investigation as-- as to whether anyone was working with the Russians, the campaign's going to have to be a focus and the candidate's always the head of the campaign, so inevitably we're going to have to look at him. And second, you're going to create a duty to correct. But if you tell him he's under investigation and that changes, don't you have to go back and tell him...'" Here, Comey is quoting the FBI's former general counsel, James Baker, as stating that "inevitably we're going to have to look at him," speaking of the President. This is a stunning admission. Here, Comey is revealing that before the President had even been sworn in, a major investigation of Trump was already in the works. What he told Trump was factually misleading. It was a lie. Most of all, because, by then, in Jan. 2017, the Trump campaign was already under investigation. It wasn't merely hypothetical. They weren't thinking about looking into the Trump campaign. They already were. We know that because the Steele dossier had already been used as evidence to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court warrant against the Trump campaign in Oct. 2016. The surveillance was ongoing. It is unbelievable that Comey would have been unaware of it. Per the House Select Committee on Intelligence Feb. 2018 memorandum on those FISA court applications, "Then-Director James Comey signed three FISA applications in question on behalf of the FBI." Per Comey's testimony, again affirmed in the ABC News interview, the Steele dossier that made these allegations was "salacious and unverified." Yet, he used it before the FISA court judge and never told the court that it was potentially false, that he doubted it and that it had been paid for by the Democrats. And still, to this day, Comey is pretending to the American people that the investigation into Trump and his campaign had not yet occurred when Trump was coming into office. When, by the FBI general counsel's own definition -- who per Comey had advised him -- any investigation into the Trump campaign was an investigation into Trump. Of course they were already looking at Trump. Just look at the timeline. Just look at his statements. By the time Comey spoke to Trump, the investigation into him and his campaign had been going on for months. And Comey knew it. On Feb. 14, 2017, the New York Times reported that the Justice Department was in fact investigating Trump and campaign officials for supposed contacts with Russian intelligence officials. But Comey would later testify that that story was false, still maintaining there had been no investigation into Trump at that stage. Former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, after being informed the story was false by former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe asked him to come forward and disavow the story. Soon thereafter, stories began circulating of the White House "obstructing" justice. McCabe and Comey certainly should have known which way the investigation was headed, and now we know per Comey quoting Baker, they knew all along that the President would be in the crosshairs, because they had discussed it. Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00002715-00003 That is, how to approach Trump, the subject of the FBI's ongoing investigation into Russian alleged interference in the 2016 election and the Trump campaign's alleged hand in coordinating with the Russian government to put DNC-hacked emails onto Wikileaks, as the Steele dossier alleged. Maybe he was in denial. But Comey lied to the then-President Elect about the investigation and then again after Trump was sworn in. Comey has repeatedly attempted to downplay the FBI's investigation that began in 2016, but by then the Justice Department was already all in. That alone should have been grounds for his firing, which now we know was wholly justified and that, constitutionally and legally, the President had absolute authority to execute. Here was the FBI usurping the President's powers to execute the laws by lying to him about an active investigation by the nations' lead law enforcement agency. Who did Comey think he was talking to? Here, he was acting as if Trump would have no role in enforcing the laws in just a matter of days. Like the President, or maybe just this President, is some passive observer in the executive branch. Trump was confronting a faction within the executive branch that believes it has a monopoly on justice. On the truth. And it continues to this day. Considering the lengths that the Justice Department has gone through to conceal its investigation and to this day is still hiding documents and information from Congress, lying to the President, and so forth after it spied on the opposition party in an election year, it's a wonder everybody in the entire building hasn't been fired. This is the greatest scandal in the FBI's history, and it happened under James Comey's watch. Perhaps that is the truth he fears the most. For shame. Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government. Cartoon: A Higher Ego By A.F. Branco Click here for a higher resolution image. Scooter Libby pardon shows Donald Trump understands HHuefler is not about justice, but about getting scalps Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00002715-00004 By Printus LeBlanc If you couldn't tell by the collective gasp from Washington D C., late last week President Donald Trump pardoned an innocent man, Scooter Libby. The mainstream media went crazy believing the pardon was a signal to the current Special Counsel Robert Mueller, letting him know he will pardon anyone he prosecutes. What is more important is Trump's pardon rights a wrong. Scooter Libby was caught up in the net of an overzealous Special Counsel that showed no interest in getting to the truth, sound familiar. On July 14, 2004, the late Robert Novak wrote a column titled "Mission to Niger" for the Washington Post. In the column, Novak responds to a previous article by Ambassador Joe Wilson stating, "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me that Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him." Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00002715-00005 That paragraph launched a Special Counsel investigation trying to identify who Novak's source was that leaked the name of Valerie Plame as a CIA officer. Then Deputy Attorney General James Comey, there's a familiar name, appointed Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate the issue. It quickly became apparent that Fitzgerald was not interested in finding out who leaked the name but was more interested in going after Vice President Dick Cheney. At the time there was an ongoing political struggle between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Vice President Dick Cheney. Colin Powell's Deputy, Richard Armitage would eventually admit to being Novak's source, but no charges were filed. Novak himself wrote about his ordeal with the Fitzgerald in 2006 claiming Fitzgerald knew who the leak was early on stating, "For nearly the entire time of his investigation, Fitzgerald knew -- independent of me -- the identity of the sources I used in my column of July 14, 2003. A federal investigation was triggered when I reported that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was employed by the CIA and helped initiate his 2002 mission to Niger. That Fitzgerald did not indict any of these sources may indicate his conclusion that none of them violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act." Not only did Fitzgerald know who the leaker was, Fitzgerald told the leaker to be quiet about the leak. Richard Armitage told CBS that Fitzgerald, "asked me not to discuss this, and I honored his request." This begs the question if Fitzgerald knew who leaked the name early on in the investigation, and Armitage was not indicted after he admitted to the crime Fitzgerald was supposed to investigate, what was Fitzgerald investigating? Libby would eventually be convicted of obstructing justice and perjury, not because he lied or obstructed justice, but because different people had different recollections of conversations they had with Libby. Imagine trying to recall every phone conversation you had within a three-month period perfectly. If you get calls mixed up, you are guilty by that standard of "justice." The Mueller investigation is starting to look an awful lot like the Fitzgerald inquisition. Neither Special Counsel investigated what it was originally formed to investigate. If Mueller was investigating Russian interference, wouldn't he investigate the Russian hack of the DNC server? There have been no reports Mueller has looked at the hack or Wikileaks, which published the DNC and John Podesta emails. It has been proven Fitzgerald knew who the leaker was but continued to harass people in hopes of getting to his ultimate prize, the Vice President. Perhaps the most important lesson to take from the pardon of Libby is that President Trump now knows Mueller is not about justice. Mueller is about getting the highest-level scalp he can, just as Fitzgerald was. The President should not talk to Mueller because as the Libby prosecution shows, getting one of hundreds of phone conversations confused can be your downfall. Printus LeBlanc is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government. ALG Editor's Note: In the following article from PJ Media, Hans Von Spakovsky reports on the DOJ and FBI refusing to cooperate with Congress: Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00002715-00006 Is DOJ Obstructing Congress in the Trump Surveillance Case? By Hans A. Von Spakovsky Did Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) really have to threaten to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in contempt and to start impeachment proceedings? Apparently so. Nunes chairs the House Intelligence Committee. For almost eight months, Wray and Rosenstein stalled his request for an unredacted copy of the memo that launched the Obama administration's investigation/surveillance of the Trump campaign. Eight months. But when Nunes threatened impeachment, he received the memo within 24 hours. The Committee is investigating whether the Justice Department and the FBI (which is part of the Justice Department) had a credible, legal basis for opening their extraordinary investigation of a presidential candidate's campaign. And the Justice Department has been trying to slow-walk the Committee's investigation from the start. But all the delaying tactics in the world can't diminish the power of Congress to exercise oversight of a federal agency's behavior - or possible misbehavior. In August 2017, the Committee subpoenaed Justice, demanding all documents associated with the opening of its "counterintelligence" operation examining Russian influence in the 2016 election. The subpoena covered the administration's request, submitted to the FISA court, seeking surveillance warrants. The Justice Department, however, refused to provide an unredacted copy of the original FBI document that outlined its reasoning for opening the investigation. In a 1975 case, Eastland v. U.S. Servicemen's Fund, the Supreme Court said that the "scope of [Congress's] inquiry ... is as penetrating and far-reaching as the potential power to enact and appropriate under the Constitution." That power, according to a 1957 Supreme Court decision, Watkins v. U.S., is at its peak when Congress is investigating "corruption, maladministration, or inefficiencies in the agencies of Government." Given that the Committee is looking into possible corruption in this investigation and/or maladministration of the statute governing the FISA court and the issuance of secret surveillance warrants, the oversight power of the Committee is at its height in this inquiry. In an April 6 letter responding to Nunes' latest demand for the unredacted memo, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd didn't directly address the demand. He did, however, generally try to justify the delay by citing "relevant legal precedents, the Department's significant law enforcement and national security responsibilities, and Executive Branch confidentiality interests." Such excuses are not novel. A 2012 report by the Congressional Research Service notes that, for generations, Congress has sought "and obtained access to information concerning prosecutorial misconduct by Department of Justice officials" - and that includes access to "pre-decisional deliberative prosecutorial memoranda." Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00002715-00007 According to the congressional report, these demands are "often resisted" by Justice for many of the same reasons outlined by Boyd but are "usually released upon committee insistence." That is because none of the reasons provided by Boyd provides a legal basis for refusing to turn over documents. Often Justice will also cave into Congress for political reasons such as nominations being held up or threats to withhold budget funding unless the demands are met. Click here for the full story. 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