The evil empire: Horowitz (draft) report on child-parent separation

Though [then Attorney General Jeff] Sessions sought to distance himself from the [illegal immigrant child-parent separation] policy, allowing Mr. Trump and Homeland Security Department officials to largely be blamed, he and other top law enforcement officials understood that “zero tolerance” meant that migrant families would be separated and wanted that to happen because they believed it would deter future illegal immigration, Mr. Horowitz wrote.

“The department’s single-minded focus on increasing prosecutions came at the expense of careful and effective implementation of the policy, especially with regard to prosecution of family-unit adults and the resulting child separations,” the draft report said.

[...]

The five U.S. attorneys along the border with Mexico, including three appointed by President Trump, recoiled in May 2018 against an order to prosecute all undocumented immigrants even if it meant separating children from their parents. They told top Justice Department officials they were “deeply concerned” about the children’s welfare.

But [AG] Sessions, made it clear what Mr. Trump wanted on a conference call later that afternoon.

[...]

“We need to take away children,” Mr. Sessions told the prosecutors, according to participants’ notes.

[...]

Rod J. Rosenstein, then the deputy attorney general, went even further in a second call about a week later, telling the five prosecutors that it did not matter how young the children were. He said that government lawyers should not have refused to prosecute two cases simply because the children were barely more than infants.

“Those two cases should not have been declined,” John Bash, the departing U.S. attorney in western Texas, wrote to his staff immediately after the call. Mr. Bash had declined the cases, but Mr. Rosenstein had overruled him. “Per the A.G.’s policy, we should NOT be categorically declining immigration prosecutions of adults in family units because of the age of a child.”

[...]

Mr. Horowitz had been preparing to release his report since late summer, according to a person familiar with the investigation, though the process allowing for responses from current and former department officials whose conduct is under scrutiny is likely to delay its release until after the presidential election.

[...]

Mr. Sessions refused to be interviewed, the report noted. Mr. Rosenstein, who is now a lawyer in private practice, defended himself in his interview with investigators in response to questioning about his role, according to two of the officials. Mr. Rosenstein’s former office submitted a 64-page response to the report.

“If any United States attorney ever charged a defendant they did not personally believe warranted prosecution, they violated their oath of office,” Mr. Rosenstein said in a statement. “I never ordered anyone to prosecute a case.”

[...]

Senior Justice Department officials viewed the welfare of the children as the responsibility of other agencies and their duty as tracking the parents. “I just don’t see that as a D.O.J. equity,” Mr. Rosenstein told the inspector general.

  NYT

The more you know about Rod Rosenstein, the more disgusted you become.

Gene Hamilton, a top lawyer and ally of Stephen Miller, the architect of the president’s assault on immigration, argued in a 32-page response that Justice Department officials merely took direction from the president. Mr. Hamilton cited an April 3, 2018, meeting with Mr. Sessions; the homeland security secretary at the time, Kirstjen Nielsen; and others in which the president “ranted” and was on “a tirade,” demanding as many prosecutions as possible.

[...]

“The draft report relied on for this article contains numerous factual errors and inaccuracies,” [Alexa Vance, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department,] said. “While D.O.J. is responsible for the prosecutions of defendants, it had no role in tracking or providing custodial care to the children of defendants. Finally, both the timing and misleading content of this leak raise troubling questions about the motivations of those responsible for it.”

Always shift the focus to the messenger.

The fact that this policy was abhorrent is borne out by the fact that everybody is trying to shift the blame for it onto someone other than himself.

Government prosecutors reacted with alarm at the separation of children from their parents during a secret 2017 pilot program along the Mexican border in Texas. “We have now heard of us taking breastfeeding defendant moms away from their infants,” one government prosecutor wrote to his superiors. “I did not believe this until I looked at the duty log.”

Border Patrol officers missed serious felony cases because they were stretched too thin by the zero-tolerance policy requiring them to detain and prosecute all of the misdemeanor illegal entry cases.

[...]

The failure to inform the U.S. Marshals Service before announcing the zero-tolerance policy led to serious overcrowding and budget overruns. The marshals were forced to cut back on serving warrants in other cases, saying that “when you take away manpower, you can’t make a safe arrest.”

[...]

After the pilot program in Texas ended, the report asserted, Mr. Sessions, Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Rosenstein pushed aggressively to expand the practice across the entire southwestern border, with help from prosecutors.

[...]

Mr. Rosenstein told the inspector general that Mr. Sessions “understood what the consequences were.”

“The A.G.’s goal,” he said, “was to create a more effective deterrent so that everybody would believe that they had a risk of being prosecuted.”

[...]

The decision roiled the prosecutors along the border. In Arizona, Elizabeth Strange, the acting U.S. attorney, led a minor rebellion, temporarily declining six cases, citing concern about the children.

[...]

Justice Department officials have repeatedly claimed that they thought the adults would be prosecuted and reunited with their children within hours of being separated. But the inspector general found a memo informing top officials that sentences for adults ranged from three to 14 days, making it all but certain that children would be sent to the custody of officials at the Health and Human Services Department for long periods of time.

UPDATE:

Speaking of Rosenstein...

What the everloving fuck? What is Rosenstein smoking?

UPDATE:

Preet Bharara and Anne Milgram (justifiably) ream Rod Rosenstein.

Barr is Trump's personal attorney in deed, if not in name

President Trump is openly telegraphing that he fully expects his attorney general to validate one of his biggest lies: that the real crime in 2016 wasn’t Russia’s sabotaging of our election but rather the decision by law enforcement to investigate it.

New public comments from William P. Barr provide Trump with ample grounds for being confident that Barr will deliver for him.

[...]

Barr’s full [NBC News] interview is now online, and it’s worse than you thought. It whitewashes away a crucial aspect of the I.G.’s conclusions in a way that’s easy to overlook but serves Trump’s political needs in deeply disingenuous fashion.

[...]

He claims “the incumbent government used the apparatus of the state” to “spy on political opponents,” in a way that could have affected “the outcome of the election” and thus posed a “danger to our free system.”

Barr claims there was never any serious evidence of “collusion” and excoriates the FBI for having an inadequate basis for launching the investigation, given the “very potent powers” the FBI has at its disposal.

[...]

Barr insists the inspector general’s analysis of this was “very limited,” vowing that his own forthcoming review would take a much more thorough look at the investigation’s genesis.

[...]

In saying those things, Barr is rewriting the story of 2016 in a subtle but consequential way. He’s implying that the FBI’s initial investigation was only motivated by what it had learned about the Trump campaign’s intentions with regard to coordinating with Russia’s electoral subversion effort.

[...]

In fact, when the FBI launched this investigation, it had already developed an awareness that Russia was undertaking this attack on U.S. democracy — separate and apart from any Trump campaign involvement with it. This was a critical reason the FBI launched its investigation.

The inspector general’s report is very clear and emphatic on this point.

[...]

As the I.G. notes, it also involved “numerous attempts to hack into state election systems,” including “confirmed access into elements of multiple state or local electoral boards.”

“It was in this context” that the FBI launched its investigation, the I.G. reports, when the FBI learned that a Trump campaign adviser had revealed he’d learned that Russia possessed dirt on Hillary Clinton.

[...]

Officials told the I.G. that the new information about the Trump campaign precipitated the investigation, but only on top of the fact that Russia was already “targeting U.S. political institutions” and trying to manipulate the “U.S. democratic process.”

This context, the I.G. concludes, helped provide the FBI with the “legitimate law enforcement purpose” of protecting against “a national security threat or federal crime.”

This is entirely elided by Barr.

[...]

It’s galling in the extreme that Barr would piously claim concern for preserving the sanctity of our elections while hand-waving away the massive outside disruption effort as a central reason the investigation was legitimately launched.

[...]

In fact, this was a serious and disruptive attack on our democratic processes and on liberal democracy itself. Barr is helping make all that go poof.

This also serves to downplay the threat of another outside attack and Trump’s eagerness to benefit from that, too, which he has openly telegraphed. And anything that obscures that eagerness helps Trump dodge accountability for his use of his office to extort another foreign power into helping rig the next election, for which he’s being impeached.

[...]

Trump wants to make all of those facts disappear. And Barr is effectively using the power of law enforcement to help him do it.

  Greg Sargent @ Wapo

Bill Barr needs to be impeached as well.

Excerpts from Chris Wray's response to IG Michael Horowitz

[T]he FBI accepts the Report’s findings and embraces the need for thoughtful, meaningful remedial action. I have ordered more than 40 corrective steps to address the Report’s recommendations. Because our credibility and brand are central to fulfilling our mission, we are also making improvements beyond those recommended by the OIG. And where certain individuals have been referred by the OIG for review of their conduct, the FBI will not hesitate to take appropriate disciplinary action if warranted at the completion of the required procedures for disciplinary review.

[...]

Notably, many of the employees described in the report are no longer employed at the FBI.

[...]

First, we are modifying our processes under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), both for initial applications and renewals, to enhance accuracy and completeness.

[...]

Second, we undertook an extensive review of investigative activity based out of FBI Headquarters.

[...]

Third, we are making significant changes to how the FBI manages its Confidential Human Source (CHS) Program.

[...]

Fourth, I am establishing new protocols for the FBI’s participation in Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)-led counterintelligence transition briefings (i.e., strategic intelligence briefings) provided to presidential nominees.

[...]

Fifth, I am mandating a specialized, semiannual training requirement for FBI personnel at all levels who handle FISA and CHS matters.

[...]

Where protection of certain sensitive information is well-founded, I remain committed to upholding the laws and longstanding policies governing classification and public release. I am just as committed to the principle that possible embarrassment and chagrin to the FBI or its employees is not, and should never be, the basis of a decision not to divulge FBI information. The FBI has worked closely with the OIG and DOJ on the classification issues implicated by the Report. Our joint process with the OIG and DOJ has ensured all material facts could be presented in this Report, with redactions carefully limited and narrowly tailored to specific national security and operational concerns. I am grateful for the mutual assistance of the OIG and DOJ in responsible presentation of this extremely sensitive information.

Since becoming FBI Director in August 2017, I have emphasized to FBI agents, analysts, and staff the importance of doing things the right way, by the book. I am humbled to serve alongside these dedicated men and women, and I am confident that the actions we are taking will strengthen our historic institution, ensure that we continue to discharge our responsibilities objectively and free from political bias, and better position us to protect the American people against threats while upholding the Constitution.

  FBI

FBI Director Christopher Wray isn't long for that job

Also, IF his lardship was ever actually given the report, he didn't read it.  But at least he's learned not to disparage the entire agency.

Wray's written response to the report.

UPDATE:

It's the lies

And they are now an open and integral part of our politics, mastered by the Republican party.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Horowitz report bottom line according to Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer

Follow Adam Serwer here.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Horowitz report analyzed by former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Follow Renato Mariotti here.
Wray's written response to the report.

UPDATE:

Bill Barr doesn't believe his IG

Well, Bill, the IG thought they were sufficient.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.


UPDATE:

UPDATE:

Oh boy, that Horowitz Report is going to cause trouble

Nearly a decade before the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka met a British intelligence officer who ran the Russia desk -- and when the agent left his covert service and moved into private practice in 2010, she stayed in touch, ABC News has learned.

The two exchanged emails but never worked together, and the man, Christopher Steele, would one day re-emerge in a most unexpected way, taking a central role in the Russia scandal that consumed the early years of her father’s presidency, according to a source familiar with their past contacts.

The prior relationship came to light as investigators with the Department of Justice Inspector General’s office was looking into allegations of political bias at the origins of the Russia investigation since May 2018.

[...]

In 2007, Ivanka Trump met Steele at a dinner and they began corresponding about the possibility of future work together, the source said. The following year, the two exchanged emails about meeting up near Trump Tower, according to several emails seen by ABC News. They suggest Ivanka Trump and Steele stayed in touch via emails over the next several years. In one 2008 exchange they discussed dining together in New York at a restaurant just blocks from Trump Tower.

[...]

The inspector general's report, which was released publicly today, briefly references these past dealings. In his discussion with investigators from the inspector general’s office, Steele cited his past cordial relationship with Ivanka Trump as reason to believe that he was not biased against her.

“If anything he was ‘favorably predisposed’ towards the Trump family before he began his research,” he told the investigators, the report says.

  ABC

I don't think that necessarily follows. He may have been favorably predisposed towards Ivanka.

Steele told investigators he met with “a Trump family member at Trump Tower and ‘been friendly’ with [the family member] for some years,” even gifting the person “a family tartan," and that the idea he was biased against the family from the start was “ridiculous,’” according to the report.

[...]

President Trump and his political supporters have depicted Steele as a villain since word of his role in creating the dossier became public. The president called him “dopey” and a “failed spy” and on Twitter referred to him as “Steele of fraudulent Dossier fame” who was “tied into Crooked Hillary.”

There's probably nothing to see here, but it's interesting that this turned up in the Horowitz report. It'll give anti-Trumpers something to shout about.

Dum-da-dum-dum-DUUUUUUUUUMMMM

Hmmmmm

Attorney General William P. Barr recently approved making public new details about a former F.B.I. informant at the heart of conservatives’ allegations about the Russia investigation, deciding to release information that had been blacked out in a highly anticipated inspector general’s report due out on Monday.

[...]

Michael E. Horowitz, told the former F.B.I. informant, Christopher Steele, on Sunday that the Justice Department had decided to allow for the release of the information.<.. Steele was given no details about the information itself, nor was he told how it would affect the report’s portrayal of him, the people said. Mr. Horowitz is expected to be critical of Mr. Steele.

[...]

It was not clear why the information about Mr. Steele had originally been blacked out in Mr. Horowitz’s report. Though Mr. Horowitz’s office operates independently, the attorney general and other senior law enforcement officials routinely review its reports to black out sensitive details like information that is classified or involves a continuing investigation.

[...]

The notice to Mr. Steele on the eve of the report’s release was highly unusual. Like the other witnesses interviewed for the inspector general’s report, Mr. Steele had earlier reviewed the findings that are pertinent to him, and he was given a chance to comment on them. In this case, Mr. Horowitz’s office did not detail for him the additional information and gave him no opportunity to respond for the report to be released on Monday.

  NYT

Objection. Shouldn't the report be held up until at least Steele gets to comment?

The more than 400-page inspector general’s report is expected to debunk the idea that the F.B.I. relied on the Steele dossier to open its Russia investigation, though it was used to apply for the warrant to wiretap Mr. Page. It is not clear the extent to which the application for the warrant relied on the dossier.

[...]

The inspector general is expected to say that the Justice Department did not know the identity of Mr. Steele’s patrons when they used some of his information in the original October 2016 application to wiretap Mr. Page. But he will be critical about the fact that law enforcement officials did not change the language about who paid for the research in later wiretap renewal applications, after officials learned that Democrats had funded the research, according to people familiar with a draft of the report.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Can't sleep?

President Donald Trump had a quiet Sunday schedule, with just one afternoon event in the Blue Room. But by midnight, he had fired off 105 tweets and retweets, going for the usual suspects — Democratic rivals, the impeachment inquiry and allegations of fake news by the mainstream media.

[...]

The first tweet of the day was at 12:47 a.m.

[...]

Trump’s Twitter barrage comes the day before House impeachment investigators will present their findings against the president to the Judiciary Committee.

  Poiltico

105 tweets in one day may be a record. Also, the Horowitz report is due out today.

In a brief, late afternoon tweet, Trump teased the release of the much-anticipated Inspector General report Monday, which coincides with House investigators’ presentation to the Judiciary Committee — a key step before Democrats finalize articles of impeachment.

The IG report will examine the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign, detailing the bureau’s decision to open an investigation into Trump-Russia ties and its conduct during that investigation.

“I.G. report out tomorrow. That will be the big story!” the president wrote Sunday.

Which the Trump cabal is going to flog for its complaints about some of the FBI actions, but whose bottom line will be that the opening of the investigation was legitimate.

Almost half of Trump’s tweets and retweets went after Democrats and detailed his perceived injustice of their pursuing an impeachment inquiry. The rivals he name-dropped were (in order of most referenced to least): House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, former Vice President Joe Biden and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler. At least 36 of his tweets directly mentioned “impeachment,” “impeach” or “impeaching.”

[...]

Trump targeted CNN in much of his media criticism, saying it is a “ratings disaster. Lost all credibility!”

[...]

Trump did get in a jab at the “Fake News Media” as a whole, saying he had a successful NATO trip but was “mocked” on his return home.

“I got NATO countries to pay 530 Billion Dollars a year more, and the U.S. less, and came home to a Fake News Media that mocked me. Didn’t think that was possible!,” he tweeted.

Hysterical. The media replayed European leaders mocking him. He didn't mention that.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It's not just Rudy who's still committing acts of virtual treason

One of the strongest arguments made by experts testifying against President Trump is that he poses a present and continuing threat to our democracy. By adopting the stance that extorting a foreign leader into helping him rig the election was perfectly fine, Trump has confirmed he’ll keep using the levers of government to continue to corrupt it on his behalf.

[...]

The latest nefarious doings of none other than William P. Barr and Rudolph W. Giuliani have now forcefully underscored this very point.

[...]

Two new investigative reports demonstrate that Barr and Giuliani are, in effect, continuing to carry out elements of the very same corrupt scheme for which Trump is currently getting impeached. Their activities have been described as “brazen,” but the truth is worse: They demonstrate with great clarity that Trump’s efforts to corrupt our political system will continue — a reminder of why he’s being impeached in the first place.

The Post reports that Barr has hit a major snag in his efforts to validate Trump’s claim that the investigation into Russian sabotage of the 2016 election was a hoax. Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector general, privately asked Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, who’s executing Barr’s review of the origins of that investigation, to validate a key element of Trumpworld’s “theory” of those origins — and he did not.

[...]

Central to this is the idea that [Joseph Mifsud] the Maltese professor who first told a Trump adviser about dirt gathered by Russia on Hillary Clinton — which launched the original FBI probe — was a U.S. agent setting up the Trump campaign. Horowitz, who is also examining the probe’s origins, has reportedly determined that he was not, and asked Durham — and intelligence agencies — to produce evidence to the contrary. They couldn’t.

It’s true that Horowitz will also reportedly announce serious irregularities with the FBI’s original handling of the investigation, and Trump’s propagandists will hype this to the skies. But the bottom line is Horowitz is expected to conclude that the investigation’s basis was legitimate, and while we don’t know what Durham will conclude, it seems clear he’s finding little to validate Trumpworld’s wild theories.

The key point here is that Barr, who is gearing up to cast doubt on Horowitz’s conclusions, is continuing to use the levers of government to carry out Trump’s overall corrupt project.

[...]

Even as Trump is getting impeached for using the power of his office to falsify the story of his corruption of our last election and to corrupt the next one, he’s still trying to accomplish both goals. And in Barr’s case, he’s cheerfully continuing to rely on the manipulation of the levers of government to do so.

  WaPo

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Barr rejects DOJ IG report

Perhaps the IG will soon be tweet-fired

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.

[...]

Barr has not been swayed by Horowitz’s rationale for concluding that the FBI had sufficient basis to open an investigation on July 31, 2016.

[...]

It’s not yet clear how Barr plans to make his objection to Horowitz’s conclusion known. The inspector general report, currently in draft form, is being finalized after input from various witnesses and offices that were scrutinized by the inspector general. Barr or a senior Justice Department official could submit a formal letter as part of that process, which would then be included in the final report. It is standard practice for every inspector general report to include a written response from the department. Barr could forgo a written rebuttal on that specific point and just publicly state his concerns.

[...]

The attorney general has privately contended that Horowitz does not have enough information to reach the conclusion the FBI had enough details in hand at the time to justify opening such a probe. He argues that other U.S. agencies, such as the CIA, may hold significant information that could alter Horo­witz’s conclusion on that point, according to the people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

  WaPo

More Trump-style bullshit. 'There's something you don't know that will prove I'm right.'

The inspector general operates independently of Justice Department leadership, so Barr cannot order Horowitz to change his findings.

I think Trump can fire him, though.

People familiar with the draft language of Horowitz’s report said that while it is critical of some FBI employees, and found some systemic problems in surveillance procedures, it overall does not agree with Trump’s charge that the investigation was a “witch hunt” or a politically motivated attack on him first as a candidate and then as president.

Instead, the draft report found that the investigation was opened on a solid legal and factual footing, these people said.

Part of Barr’s reluctance to accept that finding is related to another investigation, one being conducted by the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, John Durham, into how intelligence agencies pursued allegations of Russian election tampering in 2016. Barr has traveled abroad to personally ask foreign officials to assist Durham in that work. Even as the inspector general’s review is ending, Durham’s investigation continues.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Looking back on Friday's document dumps

This was the Friday news dump to end all news dumps, the news dump equivalent of that giant barge full of garbage from New York that couldn’t find a home back in 1987. In rough order, it was reported:

1) That Lev Parnas, one of Rudy Giuliani’s Volga Bagmen who now sits under federal indictment, has indicated that he can put Rep. Devin Nunes, the famous White House lawn ornament, in the middle of the effort to concoct the Ukrainian Fantasy about the ratfcking of the 2016 election.

2) That the inspector general of the Department of Justice will produce his report on December 9, and early reports are that, while it will be critical of sloppiness in the FBI, it will state that there was no bias against the president* in how the FBI investigation into the involvement of the Russian ratfckers was launched.

[...]

3) That The New York Times reports that the intelligence community has concluded that the entire Ukrainian Fantasy about the ratfcking of the 2016 election is an intercontinental okey-doke perpetrated by the Russian intelligence services.

[...]

4) That a massive release of State Department documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act request ropes in practically everyone, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in the effort to smear former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich, in order to get her out of the way so that the shakedown might proceed. This, of course, involves Rudy Giuliani, because anything that’s screwed up about this administration now involves Rudy Giuliani.

[...]

Just on Friday, we learned that Nunes and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were roped into this mess, too. It’s nowhere near time for the garbage barge to make port. Sail on, brothers and sisters. Sail on.

  Charles P Pierce

And somewhere, some day, I wonder if we'll get a report on the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Trump. As far as we know, it's still going on quietly in the background.

Following reports that the probe into Giuliani's business dealings in Ukraine included counterintelligence concerns, Asha Rangappa, a former FBI special agent who specialized in counterintelligence investigations, told Newsweek that the revelation should be raising questions around whether the counterintelligence probe into the president was still in motion.

[...]

While special counsel Robert Mueller completed his investigation in March, finding insufficient evidence to conclude that Trump and his campaign had colluded with Russia in interference in the 2016 election, that does not mean the counterintelligence investigation into the president [confirmed by James Comey in May 2017] is a closed case, Rangappa said.

[...]

"The other piece that we don't really know, which is the hugely important piece: is the counterintelligence investigation on the president still ongoing?" Rangappa, who now serves as the director of admissions and as a senior lecturer at the Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, where she teaches national security law, said.

[...]

"Because it's so opaque," Rangappa said, "we obviously have zero idea whether or not [the two investigations - Russian interference in 2016 and Trump extortion of Ukraine] intersect. I cannot speculate," she said.

"But, we do know that there have been many people in [Trump's] orbit who have had counterintelligence investigations—not just President Trump and Giuliani, but, before that, [Paul] Manafort, [George] Papadopoulos, [Michael] Flynn... So, what I'm saying is that you definitely do see an existing pattern.

[...]

"I think that picture, the national security picture, the idea underlying principles of the constitution that are being undermined here, those are being overlooked."

The fact alone that Giuliani could be subject to a counterintelligence investigation suggests that the FBI believes the attorney could be putting U.S. national security at risk, she said.

[...]

"The investigation is a) there to determine whether or not the threat does in fact exist and then b) if the threat does exist, how to neutralize it," she said.

  Newsweek

Which is what the counterintelligence investigation into Trump would be for, as well.

Back in May, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) told The Washington Post that his committee had largely been kept in the dark on the issue.

"The short answer is: We don't know," he said. "We don't know what happened to the counterintelligence investigation that James Comey opened."

[...]

Asked in May whether he had any reason to believe the probe had been closed, Schiff said: "You know, I have not been able to get clarity on that."

"We have been seeking to get it, to get an answer from the Justice Department, from the counterintelligence division at the FBI, and we don't have clarity, which is concerning," he said.

Adam Schiff is also now saying that there may be more depositions in the impeachment hearings, and now we have the Nunes-Parnas-Giuliani connection information, so we're not done here.

As for the counterintelligence investigation into Trump, my guess is that Barr is keeping it under wraps if he hasn't stopped it altogether so that he can advise Trump on what to do, up to and including flee the country.

The Horowitz Report

The New York Times published a preview of the IG report on FBI wrongdoing in the 2016 elections, which is expected to be released December 9.

A highly anticipated report by the Justice Department’s inspector general is expected to sharply criticize lower-level F.B.I. officials as well as bureau leaders involved in the early stages of the Trump-Russia investigation, but to absolve the top ranks of abusing their powers out of bias against President Trump, according to people briefed on a draft.

Investigators for the inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, uncovered errors and omissions in documents related to the wiretapping of a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page — including that a low-level lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, altered an email that officials used to prepare to seek court approval to renew the wiretap, the people said.

Mr. Horowitz referred his findings about Mr. Clinesmith to prosecutors for a potential criminal charge. Mr. Clinesmith left the Russia investigation in February 2018 after the inspector general identified him as one of a handful of F.B.I. officials who expressed animus toward Mr. Trump in text messages and resigned about two months ago, after the inspector general’s team interviewed him.

[...]

Mr. Clinesmith took an email from an official at another federal agency that contained several factual assertions, then added material to the bottom that looked like another assertion from the email’s author, when it was instead his own understanding.

[...]

Additionally, Mr. Clinesmith worked on both the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the Russia investigation. He was among the F.B.I. officials removed by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, after Mr. Horowitz found text messages expressing political animus against Mr. Trump.

[...]

More broadly, Mr. Horowitz’s report, to be made public on Dec. 9, portrays the overall effort to seek the wiretap order and its renewals as sloppy and unprofessional, according to the people familiar with it. He will also sharply criticize as careless one of the F.B.I. case agents in New York handling the matter and say that the bureau and the Justice Department displayed poor coordination during the investigation, they said.

At the same time, however, the report debunks a series of conspiracy theories and insinuations about the F.B.I. that Mr. Trump and his allies have put forward over the past two years, the people said, though they cautioned that the report is not complete. The New York Times has not reviewed the draft, which could contain other significant findings.

  New York Times

So, as always, we're getting a little ahead of ourselves in the drive for a scoop.

[T]he draft report also concludes that the F.B.I. had enough evidence to meet the legal standard for opening the investigation, though Mr. Horowitz emphasized that the bar is low, the people said.

The report is also said to conclude that Joseph Mifsud, a Russia-linked professor who told a Trump campaign official that Russia had damaging information on Mrs. Clinton in the form of hacked Democratic emails — a key fact used to open the investigation — was not an F.B.I. informant. That undercuts an assertion of conservative critics of the inquiry.

[...]

None of the evidence used to open the investigation came from the C.I.A. or from a notorious dossier of claims about Trump-Russia ties compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent whose research was funded by Democrats, the report concludes, according to the people briefed on it.

[...]

The early accounts of the report suggest that it is likely to stoke the debate over the investigation without definitively resolving it, by offering both sides different conclusions they can point to as vindication for their rival worldviews.

Great. It'll be another Mueller Report. Only, presumably, Mr. Horowitz will, in fact, make some recommendations.

I wonder if we'll ever see an investigation into the New York office of the FBI that was supposedly extemely anti-Hillar and provided information to Rudy Giuliani that might help Trump in the 2016 campaign.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Investigating the investigators

An FBI official is being investigated after allegedly altering a document connected to surveillance of a 2016 Trump campaign aide, CNN reported Thursday, citing people briefed on the matter.

The alleged altering was reportedly discovered as part of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's probe into whether the FBI followed the law and its own policies while applying for a warrant to surveil a former Trump campaign official Carter Page during the 2016 election.

[...]

Sources told CNN that a witness admitted to the change after being confronted by Horowitz's team about the document. Whether the FBI employee still works for the bureau and the person's rank and identity are reportedly unknown.

It is also reportedly unknown whether the document in question played a significant role in the investigation of Page.

  The Hill

How was it altered? That could be important. But as long as we don't know, GOP Trumpets are free to scream about it as proof the investigation was illegitimate.  The Hill should tell us this.  The Post did:

The Justice Department inspector general has found evidence that an FBI employee may have altered a document connected to court-approved surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser, but has concluded that the conduct did not affect the overall validity of the surveillance application, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

  WaPo

That won't be part of their scream campaign.

The person under scrutiny is a low-level FBI lawyer who has since been forced out of the agency, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss material that has not yet been made public.

The allegation is contained in a draft of Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report analyzing the FBI’s Russia investigation, which witnesses have in recent weeks been allowed to review, people familiar with the matter said. The report is scheduled to be released publicly Dec. 9.

The employee was forced out of the FBI after the incident was discovered, two U.S. officials said. Horowitz found that the employee erroneously indicated he had documentation to back up a claim he had made in discussions with the Justice Department about the factual basis for the application. He then altered an email to back up that erroneous claim, they said.

That conduct did not alter Horowitz’s finding that the surveillance application of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page had a proper legal and factual basis, the officials said.

So,the agent was found out and fired by the FBI itself, and the underlying FISA application still had a proper basis.

Horowitz has been exploring various aspects of the Russia probe but was focused in particular on applications the FBI filed with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor Page’s electronic communications.

Looks like he's turned up nothing to nullify or prosecute.  But the GOP and Trump cabal have until December 9th to make people think he did.  I'm guessing that's why this bit leaked.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Impeach Barr while you're at it

The Barr DOJ tried to get away with some slimey shit on their investigation of the Russia-interference investigators. If the report is accurate, this wouldn't be necessary.

The Justice Department inspector general’s office told witnesses set to review draft sections of its long-awaited report on the FBI investigation of President Trump’s 2016 campaign that they would not be allowed to submit written feedback, but later asserted that was not their intention after a Washington Post report disclosing the unusual restriction.

  WaPo

Jesus, these people are so fucking corrupt.

The Post’s report, first published early Thursday evening, detailed a series of parameters that some feared could make the final document less accurate. At the time, the Justice Department inspector general’s office declined to comment. But late Thursday night, Stephanie Logan, a spokeswoman, said the office would clarify to witnesses that they could submit written feedback “consistent with rules to protect classified information.”

"Clarified."

“As part of our factual accuracy review, and consistent with our usual practice, we are providing witnesses with the opportunity to review portions of the report that relate to them,” Logan said. “Also consistent with our practice, we undertake every effort to ensure witnesses can provide their comments and we are clarifying to witnesses that they will be able to provide written comments, consistent with rules to protect classified information.”

The Post had reported hours earlier that — as is the case in most inspector general probes — witnesses were being invited to review draft sections of the report and offer comments and corrections. But — unlike most cases — they were told those comments must be conveyed only verbally, people familiar with the matter said.

And why would that be?

The initial directives left some witnesses concerned that their objections might not be recorded precisely and incorporated into the inspector general’s findings, the people said.

A very reasonable concern.

The witnesses, they said, were also concerned that the process gave the inspector general complete control in characterizing any comments witnesses make — and left witnesses with limited ability to create a paper trail that might help them show their words were captured inaccurately.

I have to suggest that was the point.

The inspector general is aiming to complete the witness reviews by Nov. 21, although release of the report may wait until after the Thanksgiving holiday.

[...]

The report’s release is also likely to be a major credibility test for Barr, who has suggested impropriety by past leadership at the FBI. With Horowitz’s review ongoing, Barr earlier this year tapped a federal prosecutor in Connecticut — U.S. Attorney John Durham — to separately explore whether the intelligence activities aimed at people tied to the Trump campaign were lawful. Durham’s investigation is exploring potential crimes, officials have said.

The real witch hunt.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Investigating the investigators

Maybe not going like they were hoping.

Christopher Steele, the former British spy behind the infamous “dossier” on President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia, was interviewed for 16 hours in June by the Justice Department’s internal watchdog, according to two people familiar with the matter.

[...]

[DOJ Inspector General Michael] Horowitz has been examining the FBI’s efforts to surveil a one-time Trump campaign adviser [Carter Page] based in part on information from Steele, an ex-British MI6 agent who had worked with the bureau as a confidential source since 2010.

[...]

Horowitz’s team has been intensely focused on gauging Steele’s credibility as a source for the bureau. But Steele was initially reluctant to speak with the American investigators because of the potential impropriety of his involvement in an internal DOJ probe as a foreign national and retired British intelligence agent.

[...]

The extensive, two-day interview took place in London while Trump was in Britain for a state visit.

[...]

Steele’s American lawyer was present for the conversation.

[...]

The interview was contentious at first, the sources added, but investigators ultimately found Steele’s testimony credible and even surprising.

[...]

[T]he extensive interview with Steele, and the investigators’ sense that he offered new and important information, may dampen expectations among the president’s allies who’ve claimed that Steele’s sensational dossier was used improperly by the bureau to “spy” on the campaign.

  Politico

Demands for an investigation into the so-called “Steele dossier,” authored by former UK MI6 spy Christopher Steele, were previously made by Republicans, and resulted in a Department of Justice Inspector General investigation that began in March 2018. Many conservatives lambasted the report for being the catalyst of the FBI investigation into Trump, although fact-checking organizations have demonstrated that wasn’t the case at all.

Still, Trump allies alleged that a specific action taken by the FBI — the monitoring of Trump campaign aide Carter Page — was unduly made, since the FISA warrant was issued in part based on selections from the Steele dossier.

[...]

Attorney General William Barr, who now heads the Justice Department, told a congressional committee that the Horowitz probe would be completed by May or June.

One of the two sources said Horowitz’s investigators appear to have found Steele’s information sufficiently credible to have to extend the investigation. Its completion date is now unclear.

  Hill Reporter

The twelfth of never as long as Trump and Barr are in office.

Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday he believes the public will soon see that much of the Trump-Russia dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele was "made up."

[...]

"This is a man who made up this entire document. As you're starting to see it's unraveling, his sources are not real or if they are real they're second and third hand. So a lot of this is just made up out of whole cloth," said Nunes.

  Fox News

Well, what a surprise.

He's the fuhrer

If he says it, it's so.



...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.