Stasi Raid Mar-a-Lago

[Gondwanaland]

I think it's important to remember that some people's trust of the FBI goes only so far as doing so helps their preferred side:

Source: https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/fbi-donald-trump-base-230755

By JOSH GERSTEIN

11/04/2016 05:36 PM EDT
The typical Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent is white, male, and middle-aged, often with a military background — in short, drawn from the segment of the U.S. population most likely to support GOP nominee Donald Trump.

That demographic reality explains much of the heat FBI Director James Comey is taking from his own work force at the moment for his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation and inquiries into the Clinton Foundation.

Days before the presidential election, FBI finds itself at the center of a political maelstrom, with Comey being sharply criticized by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and even President Barack Obama, who’ve faulted the FBI director for going public with word of new evidence in the Clinton email probe.

That furor has exposed dissension in the FBI’s ranks, prompting a flurry of leaks about alleged efforts to impede the Clinton-related inquiries and exposing lingering anger among agents about Comey’s July decision not to recommend any charges in the email probe.

Incendiary, politically charged remarks from former FBI officials — with one prominent ex-FBI leader publicly calling the Clintons a “crime family” — are also endangering the law enforcement agency’s reputation for sober, nonpartisan investigation.

© Copyright Original Source

Source: https://truthout.org/articles/the-fbi-has-always-been-political/

The FBI Has Always Been Political

BYDanny Katch, Socialist Worker
PUBLISHEDNovember 8, 2016

Clinton vs. Trump was bound to anticlimax with something out of an Onion headline, and apparently this is the one we’re going to get: “Content-less Election Rocked by Information-less Revelation that May or May Not Involve Anthony Weiner.”

In news that rocked the worlds of a relatively small number of politicians and pundits, FBI Director James Comey announced that while investigating Weiner’s lewd texts with a 15-year-old girl, the agency had “learned of the existence of e-mails” on the computer of Weiner’s partner Huma Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Clinton, “that appear to be pertinent to its earlier investigation” of Clinton’s use of a private server for storing classified e-mails.

Comey added that “the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant.”

That’s literally all we know, but it’s been enough to “shake up” an election that was getting dangerously close to declining TV ratings.

Donald Trump, of course, declared that the existence of e-mails with unknown content proves that Clinton is engaged in corruption “on a scale we have never seen before” — which is quite a statement coming from someone who really has seen massive amounts of corruption in his time as a tax cheat, real estate swindler and for-profit university con artist.

On the other side, the Clinton campaign has called on its supporters to challenge the credibility of Comey, a Republican appointed to his position by Barack Obama, and Democrats are heeding the call with Trumpian levels of conspiracy-fueled rage.

After weeks of mocking Trump and his supporters for claiming the election is rigged, Democrats now claim that the director of the FBI is trying to steal the election from Clinton.

Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, who declared in July that “no one can question the integrity” of Comey after the FBI director cleared Clinton of criminal charges in the e-mail server probe is now suggesting that Comey could be brought up on charges for breaking laws that bar government employees from engaging in political activity.

On November 1, the New York Times ran not one, but two articles — one a “news” story and the other an opinion piece — comparing Comey’s public announcement to the nefarious secret conspiracies of founding FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

© Copyright Original Source

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/03/fbi-leaks-hillary-clinton-james-comey-donald-trump

'The FBI is Trumpland': anti-Clinton atmosphere spurred leaking, sources say

Deep antipathy to Hillary Clinton exists within the FBI, multiple bureau sources have told the Guardian, spurring a rapid series of leaks damaging to her campaign just days before the election.


Current and former FBI officials, none of whom were willing or cleared to speak on the record, have described a chaotic internal climate that resulted from outrage over director James Comey’s July decision not to recommend an indictment over Clinton’s maintenance of a private email server on which classified information transited.

“The FBI is Trumpland,” said one current agent.

This atmosphere raises major questions about how Comey and the bureau he is slated to run for the next seven years can work with Clinton should she win the White House.

The currently serving FBI agent said Clinton is “the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel,” and that “the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump.”

The agent called the bureau “Trumplandia”, with some colleagues openly discussing voting for a GOP nominee who has garnered unprecedented condemnation from the party’s national security wing and who has pledged to jail Clinton if elected.

© Copyright Original Source

Source: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/kavanaugh-whitehouse-fbi/

It’s Time to Investigate the FBI—for Its Deep-Fake Kavanaugh Investigation

While most Democrats seem resigned to Kavanaugh's presence on the Supreme Court, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is pushing to keep the case against him alive.

By Elie MystalTwitter

MARCH 17, 2021

...
Late last week, Sheldon Whitehouse, Democratic senator from Rhode Island and, apparently, one of the only senators willing to remember what Republicans did while they were in power, wrote a letter calling on newly confirmed Attorney General Merrick Garland to look into the FBI’s handling of the attempted-rape allegations against Kavanaugh. Specifically, he asked Garland to determine whether the FBI conducted a “fake investigation rather than a sincere, thorough and professional one.” As evidence for the failures of the investigation, Whitehouse points out holes in the FBI’s process that are well known to those of us who have refused to let Kavanaugh get away with it: people and law firms who tried in vain to bring information about Kavanaugh to the bureau but couldn’t find an agent willing to listen; a “tips line” that the FBI never seemed to respond to or follow up on; and repeated “stonewalling” by FBI Director Chris Wray in front of congressional oversight committees about the investigation. Also, the agency failed to follow up on other allegations against Kavanaugh that, in Whitehouse’s words, “required their own investigation.”

...
An investigation of the FBI’s investigation is desperately needed. As Whitehouse’s letter makes clear, this is not just about Kavanaugh’s fitness to sit on the Supreme Court; this is about the reliability of the FBI, and the agency’s willingness to vet political appointees for crimes if there is pressure from the top to look the other way.

© Copyright Original Source

Then of course, there was this warning from VOX

Source: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/2/13486740/trump-fbi-corrupt-revenge

Just imagine what the FBI saga would look like under a vengeful President Trump
By Dara Lind[email protected] Nov 2, 2016, 10:50am EDT

The federal government has to make a lot of judgment calls. Donald Trump doesn’t have judgment — he has a desire for vengeance.

In the last days of the 2016 campaign — as the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server has surged back into the headlines — the American public has been reminded just how much power the federal government has to choose what to investigate and whom to target.

Typically, that power lies mostly unused: Presidents are usually in office to set policy, not to punish their personal enemies. But one of the major party nominees in 2016 is a man defined by the desire for vengeance — a man who carries, as a rule for life, that if someone screws you over, you screw them back “ten times worse.”

The FBI has just reminded America that public officials make subjective decisions all the time. It’s raised the specter of what might happen if those officials had decided, with a unified mind, to use their power over information to punish their enemies and reward their friends.

But the way the story has unfolded — a steady drip of leaks from within the FBI and Department of Justice — has been a reminder that the government isn’t always a unified mind in pursuit of a single goal. It’s made up of various factions with their own agendas, who have plenty of ways of undermining each other if they don’t agree with what their superiors have done.

...
How the federal government could go after a president’s enemies — if it so chose


There are a lot of ways the federal government can make the lives of private citizens hell. Companies that rely on federal contracts can be stripped of permissions like security clearances, or simply get all their contract bids rejected. Government employees are obviously the most beholden, but even people outside the federal government have a lot at stake.

There are dozens of agencies within the federal government tasked with identifying and pursuing potential violations of laws and regulations. The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association includes members of 65 federal agencies. And not every investigative agency counts as law enforcement: Agencies from the Office of Safety and Health Administration to the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice to the SEC to the EEOC spend a lot of their time looking at potential violations (and pushing the potential violators to cooperate).

They’re increasingly aggressive in their tactics — in 2014, the New York Times found 40 different federal agencies who’d used undercover agents in investigations (including the Department of Agriculture, the Small Business Administration, and NASA). They have new technologies and tactics of surveillance: Inevitably, surveillance requests that are supposed to be used for anti-terrorism aims end up getting used in more mundane domestic law enforcement.

And they have the ability to cast a wide net.

"We now have an awful lot of federal laws for practically everything," John Malcolm of the Heritage Foundation — a former assistant US attorney himself — told me last year for a story I reported on prosecutorial discretion. Many of these laws carry criminal penalties for things that used to be simply regulatory infractions. Until last year, Congress could pass a law that created new crimes without the judiciary committee of either chamber ever getting a look at it.

"When everything all of a sudden becomes a crime, then you have a broad field from which you can pick and choose," said Malcolm.

...

You don’t have to succeed in prosecuting someone to succeed in harassing them


Even if those investigations never result in formal court action, simply complying with a federal investigation can be costly: "forcing someone or a company to spend a lot of money, to answer questions, to produce information, potentially damaging reputations if the investigation were to come out," said Sean Moulton of the Project on Government Oversight. "To know the federal government is looking into you in terms of being a criminal target? That can take an emotional toll on you," Malcolm added in an interview last week.

Because there are so many violations, the question of how investigators choose whom to target becomes the most important one.

This is the reason the Department of Justice has a policy against revealing any information about investigations that could be relevant to a campaign within 60 days of an election. But in practice, as the FBI discovered this year, that policy leads to a lot of judgment calls.

When the FBI concluded that Russia was trying to tamper with the election, did the importance of the information outweigh the fact that it could affect the course of the campaign? The FBI ultimately concluded that it was worth notifying the public — but Comey, according to reports, didn’t want to go public because of the 60-day rule.

When Comey was notified about the new 650,000 emails in late October, did the 60-day window trump another longstanding DOJ practice of updating Congress about investigations after testifying about them in hearings? Comey decided it didn’t. But several former DOJ officials believe he made the wrong choice.

© Copyright Original Source

See that's what I was saying early on the thread - most of the objections and complaints sounded just like Hillary supporters in 2016. Like completely indistinguishable.

[CivilDiscourse]

See that's what I was saying early on the thread - most of the objections and complaints sounded just like Hillary supporters in 2016. Like completely indistinguishable.

Having said that, we also have to admit that the FBI has not shown itself in the best light during the last few years. This is an area where there's plenty of reason to be suspicious of everybody, and there isn't a "good guy" or a "bad guy", but an agency that has shown itself willing to lie during investigations into trump, and a president who has shown himself to be willing to lie because it's tuesday.

[Mountain Man]

Yes. Juvenal posted a nice summary of his shifting tales. That's also ignoring his and his sons lies about the warrant and the receipt/list of what was taken. Why you believe a word that comes out his mouth is beyond me.

From what I've read, President Trump has pretty consistently maintained that he never had classified documents in his possession (affirmed by his lawyers), and that he was openly cooperating with the National Archives to turn over any documents under dispute (affirmed by a letter from the National Archives). Now we have learned that the FBI may have illegally taken privileged information from President Trump's residence. That's in addition to the sketchy manner in which the raid was carried out by refusing to let anybody see the warrant until long after it was over, and by refusing to let any of the President's official representatives observe the FBI agents in order to keep them honest, which is highly suspicious when we know for a fact that the FBI is not above lying and fabricating evidence to make a case.

It seems pretty clear that the primary purpose of this raid was to blunt the Republican party's chances of taking control of Congress in November, and to disqualify President Trump from seeking a second term.

[Gondwanaland]

From what I've read,

Bro, pretty much everything youve read and posted about on this thread turned out to be lies.

President Trump has pretty consistently maintained that he never had classified documents in his possession (affirmed by his lawyers), and that he was openly cooperating with the National Archives to turn over any documents under dispute (affirmed by a letter from the National Archives). Now we have learned that the FBI may have illegally taken privileged information from President Trump's residence. That's in addition to the sketchy manner in which the raid was carried out by refusing to let anybody see the warrant until long after it was over, and by refusing to let any of the President's official representatives observe the FBI agents in order to keep them honest, which is highly suspicious when we know for a fact that the FBI is

Again, an overview of your lying cult leader's shifting claims has been posted.

not above lying and fabricating evidence to make a case.

I've only seen one side lying here, and it's consistently been your cult leader, his son, and various others in the cult defending him. The FBI has come out this looking quite clean and honest.

It seems pretty clear that the primary purpose of this raid was to blunt the Republican party's chances of taking control of Congress in November, and to disqualify President Trump from seeking a second term.

What's very clear js the primary purpisebofbth3braid was to retrieve the classified documents your cult leader stole, and obtain more evidence regarding his criminal acts wrt documents and document mutilation and destruction.

[RumTumTugger]

Or are we all agreed that that's the appropriate way to get classified documents back when Trump refuses to return them, or even admit that he has them?

Cite your source for this Stoic. Because as others have mentioned with cites where Trump did cooperate with the NARA early this year by handing over 15 boxes, and then the FBI in June by letting agents come down to Mar-a-Lago to look through the rest of the documents after being served a subpeona. The FBI only took a few more documents with them then even when shown the ones in the basement room they asked for a lock to be put on the door after looking through them which trumps team did. Which leads to the question of why the FBI agents left those classified documents instead of taking them as well.

[Stoic]

A few years back one of the FISA judges lit into the FBI for handing over what they knew were phony documents to get their FISA warrant against Trump.

I'd ask for a source, but I think you and I both know there is no reputable source that says any such thing.

[Juvenal]

Good grief! I missed that. A quick net search led to this https://www.nationalreview.com/news/...r-a-lago-raid/ Cleary Schiffer was completely deranged.

.

Ex-CIA official: What I'm seeing now is similar to the run-up to Jan. 6

Phil Mudd, who has worked for both the FBI and the CIA, says the rhetoric and threats against FBI agents and Department of Justice officials in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago search reminds him of what he saw leading up to the January 6 insurrection. #CNN #News

In the video, Mudd notes the doxxing of the Judge who signed off on the warrant and the FBI agents who signed off on the inventory, not to mention the doxxing of their family members. The risk as he sees is it is enflaming the Babbitts and Shiffers, mentally unstable individuals indoctrinated into Domestic Violent Extremism. In addition, there are groups like the Oath Keepers and Proudboys currently in various stages of investigation, trial, or incarceration following their participation in the attack on the Capitol on January 6.

As a foreigner, you may not be aware that the Justice Department is now at the outskirts of its “dark” period, the 60 to 90 days before an election where their own regulations …
.

[…] state that Justice Department employees “may never select the timing of investigative steps or criminal charges for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.” They also encourage prosecutors to contact the Public Integrity Section of the Criminal Division for further guidance regarding “the timing of charges or overt investigative steps near the time of a primary or general election.”

As such, it’s increasingly unlikely that any further public statements will be forthcoming from Merrick Garland or the FBI. That doesn’t mean they can’t continue to quietly build their cases, or that they couldn’t seek indictments immediately after the election, before the next congress is seated.

Similarly, in high profile cases, for instance, if they find reason to indict the former president, there is still a good chance that they may choose not to prosecute because they determine it’s not in the best interests of the country.

Paradoxically, if the incitement against the FBI intended to defend against any charges should lead to violence against law enforcement, the calculation of where indictments against Trump are in the best interest of the country is likely to shift against him.

Keep in mind that until he and his legal team began speaking of planted documents during a search at Mar-a-Lago they themselves publicized, there’d been no public acknowledgment of investigations under the Espionage Act. Now that that’s known, there is a reasonable argument to be made that he’s already backed the DOJ into taking him to trial.
.

[Stoic]

True. But the receipt was written by some unknown person using some unknown criteria. Did the papers actually say "top secret" on them or does he/she assume that from what little was read?

There is really no mistaking classified documents. They have to be stamped prominently at the top and bottom of every page with TOP SECRET, SECRET, or CONFIDENTIAL (sometimes along with additional info).

[Juvenal]

What's very clear js the primary purpisebofbth3braid […]

… was to further prove my legitimate objections to cellphones as communication devices.

[Juvenal]

There is really no mistaking classified documents. They have to be stamped prominently at the top and bottom of every page with TOP SECRET, SECRET, or CONFIDENTIAL (sometimes along with additional info).

Don’t even get me started. The hours in Nuclear Power School I spent stamping classifications top and bottom of every page of my notebooks only to find every single damn thing I learned in that school was taught openly in physics classes in college. The piglet couldn’t come up with an example of actual secrets, either.

I spent over a year in the Airborn Command Post school at Keesler. I know your pain. I had a permanent stain on my hand from that stamp ink.

[CivilDiscourse]

There is really no mistaking classified documents. They have to be stamped prominently at the top and bottom of every page with TOP SECRET, SECRET, or CONFIDENTIAL (sometimes along with additional info).

They haven't necessarily been stamped in a very long time. Labeled, yes. But stamping only occurred if the document in question isn't inherently labeled. Otherwise classification markings are just part of the header footer.

And of course, Hillary's email scandal shows that your overall statement isn't necessarily true, as it's the content that makes the classification, not the markings, and they clearly found documents that should have been classified in her emails. (Otherwise they wouldn't have been "retroactively classified")

[Ronson]

There is really no mistaking classified documents. They have to be stamped prominently at the top and bottom of every page with TOP SECRET, SECRET, or CONFIDENTIAL (sometimes along with additional info).

You're assuming the stamp is there. What if there is no identifying stamp and it is up to the agent to read the first paragraph and make a determination so it can be listed? The first paragraph says "Putin" in it somewhere so the agent lists it as "top secret" - whether it says so or not.

I don't know what the minimum qualifications are to be an FBI agent. I know that in the early 1980s I was interviewed by the CIA to work in an embassy to maintain satellite equipment, and all I had at the time was a high school diploma and some college (and electronics experience). So, are these high-school educated agents making determinations about what is/isn't classified material? They're not qualified for that.

[RumTumTugger]

It's the only rational method, given that other less intrusive and confronting methods failed and potential crimes (including possibly by lawyers it appears) are at issue. Of course, rational isn't something trump cultists care about, so I have no doubt some still think they shouldn't have.


.... and apparently was moving boxes around in and out of the storage area in the series of days that the surveillance tapes covered in the subpoena...

Cite your sources for the above accusations I have been watching and reading about this all week and nothing has been said about possible crimes and moving of boxes others here have linked their sources showing that as late as June less intrusive methods did work and Trump was cooperative why do you just keep posting that Trump was not cooperating at all without a cite. At most according to all the time lines I checked out you could possibly say that Trump stopped cooperating just one month Pryor and that is if you that the sent another subpoena in July that there has been nothing said about. The only subpoena I have been able to find information about is the one used by the FBI that Trump complied with in June.

Put up your sources or
Shut up about their being no cooperation from Trump.

[Gondwanaland]

Cite your sources for the above accusations I have been watching and reading about this all week and nothing has been said about possible crimes and moving of boxes others here have linked their sources showing that as late as June less intrusive methods did work and Trump was cooperative why do you just keep posting that Trump was not cooperating at all without a cite. At most according to all the time lines I checked out you could possibly say that Trump stopped cooperating just one month Pryor and that is if you that the sent another subpoena in July that there has been nothing said about. The only subpoena I have been able to find information about is the one used by the FBI that Trump complied with in June.

Put up your sources or
Shut up about their being no cooperation from Trump.

Yeah hun, just as soon as you give us a link to that interview that you refused to give (while simultaneously demanding I give you aSECOND video link). You ain't been watching jack other than what your cult leader says

[RumTumTugger]

On one level, yes, but it also depends on the state on the grassroots level. In California, voters must vote their registered party in the primaries. In Missouri, the primaries are open to all, and anyone can vote for any party in the primaries.

Actually in California American independent and those who do not choose a Party have been able to vote in the Democrat primary* for years you see we have a little law that says if the state committee of a Party decides open their primary to the above it is ok and the Democrats have given said permission, the Republicans haven't



*the presidential primary that is since in the mid term they consider all other offices as non partisan we have "jungle election" where every one running is put in for any one to vote for it is known as the Top 2 vote getters so in races where a bunch of Replicants run it dilutes the votes any Republican gets so in the general conservatives Republicans like me are given a choice between 2 liberal Democrat candidates. It wasn't always so. Some what of an expert here 11 national elections as a precinct worker starting as a clerk then later as a judge.