Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America enjoy a late lunch today as they cheer the Justice Department for allowing the FBI informant to testify about his knowledge of a massive Russian bribery scheme to influence U.S. nuclear policy. They’re also exasperated as FBI files show people warned authorities about the Sandy Hook shooter’s fascination with mass killings and pedophilia and his specific statements about killing his mother and students. And they react to Kid Rock announcing he is not running for Senate and never had any intention of doing so, but Him explains why he thinks that explanation is bogus.
FBI
Lawyer for FBI Informant Talks Russia Uranium Probe
The lawyer for a former FBI informant who gathered evidence of a massive Russian bribery scheme to influence U.S. nuclear policy during the Obama administration says it is illegal for the government to prevent her client from speaking to Congress about what he knows.
She also says her client’s revelations went largely ignored by the FBI for political reasons and that he was threatened with criminal prosecution by the Justice Department under former Attorney General Loretta Lynch if he ever spoke publicly about the case.
Victoria Toensing has been representing the unnamed informant for the past several weeks. Toensing is a former deputy assistant attorney general and a former federal prosecutor. She is now a partner in the Washington law firm of diGenova & Toensing.
She says this whole saga began more than eight years ago.
“My client began working with the FBI in 2009 after he was contracted with the Russian company in the nuclear business. All of a sudden, he was asked to take part of his salary and give it as kickback money in bribes. They didn’t say it that way. They just said take part and pay this person, pay that person. So he went to the FBI. He was appalled,” said Toensing.
“The FBI saw an opportunity and they said, ‘Work undercover for us.’ So he thought he was being a good American and he reported not only the payoffs – that was just run of the mill corruption, it’s bad corruption – but also it was important for the government as a counterintelligence measure to get information about what the Russians were doing,” said Toensing.
Toensing says her client fed volumes of information to the FBI only to learn the bureau did nothing with it.
“So that started in 2009. Can you imagine my client’s surprise when he finds out in October 2010 that the U.S. government authorized the purchase by these corrupt companies of a company [that provided] 20 percent of the uranium for the United States?” said Toensing.
The informant was dumbfounded.
“‘Why did this go through? Why did this happen? Look, I’ve been giving you all this information,’ he says to his FBI people. They kind of rolled their eyes and one of them said, ‘Politics,'” said Toensing.
No prosecutions occurred in the case until 2014 and Toensing says even then the worst penalties amounted to a slap on the wrist. The ordeal took a much uglier turn when the Justice Department refused the informant’s request for reimbursement.
“My client was never given the money back that he paid out from his own salary that the FBI had promised to give him, so he brought suit in 2016,” said Toensing, who was not representing him at that time.
“When he filed this suit, the Loretta Lynch Justice Department called his lawyer and threatened him and said, ‘If you don’t withdraw this lawsuit, we’re going after your liberty and reputation,” she added.
The Justice Department staked its argument on the non-disclosure agreement, or NDA, that the informant signed when first agreeing to funnel evidence to the FBI.
“They said, ‘You signed a non-disclosure agreement when you started working and you will be violation of that non-disclosure agreement, and we will prosecute you for that,'” said Toensing.
In decades of legal work, Toensing says she’s never come across a threat like that over an NDA.
“I’ve never heard of a criminal penalty in a non-disclosure agreement. It’s usually a civil penalty, a $25,000 fine or something,” said Toensing, who also says there almost always exceptions to the NDA, such as court subpoenas or congressional testimony.
Furthermore, she says the Justice Department won’t even allow her client to see his NDA.
“How do I know? When the lawyer in 2016 filed a [Freedom of Information] request to get that non-disclosure agreement, the government refused to answer, wouldn’t even respond,” said Toensing.
The effort now is to waive the terms of the NDA. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is formally inviting Toensing’s client to testify and also asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions to release him from the NDA to testify.
Toensing says if given the opportunity, her client’s testimony will be “significant” but she doesn’t see how the testimony can legally be blocked.
“It’s a constitutional issue. The executive branch can’t forbid someone from giving information to the legislative branch. That’s a separation of powers issue,” said Toensing.
When asked if Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the probe into Russian involvement in the 2016 elections could complicate his decision on Grassley’s request for the informant to testify, Toensing says it is vital no to intertwine or conflate the two matters.
“No, no, no, no. Don’t do this. This is not all things Russia. I haven’t met a reporter yet who understands this, which shows you how good the Democrats are in their talking points.
“Jeff (Sessions) recused himself because he was involved in the campaign and there’s a specific Justice Department guideline that says if the campaign is being investigated, if you participated in the campaign you have to recuse yourself. This is not all things Russia,” said Toensing.
She says Trump could also release her client from his NDA.
While on the subject of recusal, Toensing says former FBI Director Robert Mueller ought to step aside as special counsel following the revelation from the informant that the FBI sat on the Russian corruption while Mueller was in charge.
Toensing says that alone is not evidence of any misdeeds by Mueller, but she says the mere appearance of impropriety should lead him to step away from the investigation.
In addition, she says the virtual media blackout on this story since the explosive reports emerged earlier in the week is stunning.
“Gosh, it’s just amazing. I was told by a friend of mine that knows something about this that he approached CNN and they said, ‘No, we don’t want to do it.’
“I was called by CNN [Thursday] just to give some facts. At the end, I said, ‘Well, why don’t you have me on.’ ‘Oh that’s a good idea. We’ll get back to you,'” said Toensing.
“Jake Tapper had (former Attorney General) Eric Holder on the other day after this story broke and didn’t even ask him if he had been briefed on the corruption investigation. He didn’t even ask him. He calls himself a journalist?” said Toensing.
WV Gov. Joins GOP, Mueller Calls Grand Jury, Wasserman-Schultz Cries Wolf
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America welcome West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice’s decision to flip to the Republican Party, giving the GOP control of the governor’s office in 35 states. They also wade through the implications of Special Counsel Robert Mueller creating a grand jury for his investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign. And they unload on former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz for her shameful efforts to protect herself and her former IT staffer from a criminal investigation by alleging anti-Muslim bias by the FBI.
Wray Replaces Comey, Trump’s Personnel Problem, ‘Paddy Wagon’ Politics
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud the Senate for approving Christopher Wray as the new FBI director with virtually no drama. They also discuss Rep. Mike McCaul’s reluctance to be considered to lead the Department of Homeland Security. While many border security advocates are not fans of McCaul, Jim wonders whether Trump’s public criticisms of administration figures will convince qualified people to pass on chances to serve. And Jim and Greg react as you might expect after the author of a Washington Post opinion piece slams President Trump for his use of the term “paddy wagon” in a speech,” claiming it is a slur against the Irish that should not be part of civil discourse.
ISIS In Crisis, Comey Memo Mayhem, Bernie Healthcare Hysteria
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America welcome reports of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death and Jim offers some super helpful tips to anyone looking to take his place. They also address Fox and Friends’ retraction after they overstated the level of classified information that former FBI Director James Comey revealed in his memos. And they ridicule Sen. Bernie Sanders for his outrageous and hysterical claims that the GOP healthcare bill will result in thousands of deaths every year if it passes.
Pro-Life Court Victory, FBI Strikes Out, Social Media Gestapo
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America celebrate with the pro-life community over the news that a California court is dropping 14 of 15 charges against activists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, whose undercover videos show Planned Parenthood illegally selling aborted baby body parts. They also express concern over the FBI’s reluctance to state that the Alexandria shooter was politically motivated. And they discuss reports that German police are raiding homes and interrogating people over controversial social media posts.
‘Trump Had a Good Day,’ Political Troubles Persist
Thursday’s highly anticipated testimony of former FBI Director James Comey delivered devastating blows to the legal accusations against President Trump, but a former federal prosecutor says the political damage inflicted by Comey and the overall investigation could end up being a major wound.
In the hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey confirmed that Trump is not and never was personally under investigation by the FBI as part of the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections and, critically, that there is no evidence of collusion between Trump and his team and Russia.
He also said Trump never directly ordered him to cease any probe and that media reports suggesting extensive communications between the Trump campaign and the Russian government were almost entirely false.
However, Comey also said he took Trump’s overtures on behalf of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn as a directive. He also indicated that he started keeping memos only when Trump was elected to protect himself if there were any future dust-ups.
In his opening statement, Comey also slammed Trump for changing his public explanation for firing him, initially indicating that it was about the handling of the Hillary Clinton case before admitting it was about the Russia probe. Comey then called Trump a liar for publicly suggesting that FBI personnel had lost confidence in him.
Between the media hype and the Democratic talking points leading into Thursday, Trump critics were preparing for an event that would be the tipping point towards his legal or political downfall. They didn’t get it.
“If you just look clinically at the legal facts that came out, Trump had a good day as far as the allegations we’ve been looking at over the last six months,” said former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, who led the prosecution of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and others for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and planning to attack other landmarks.
“The testimony undermines the case for obstruction of justice, which I’ve been trying to argue was not strong at all to begin with. There’s still no evidence of collusion and they acknowledged Trump was not the subject of an investigation,” said McCarthy.
He says the definitive remarks on collusion may well be the biggest stories of the day.
“Today probably puts to bed the notion that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Putin regime. So Comey, who would have had every motivation to suggest such collusion if there had been any, really was very clear on the fact there was no evidence of that,” said McCarthy.
McCarthy says the intense politicization of Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 elections has distracted officials from focusing on the actual, ongoing threat.
“What I’ve been concerned about is that our consideration of Russia has become so hyper-politicized that a lot people have a motivation to downplay it. To me it’s very serious, so I hope we can put the politics part of that aside and start to focus on the Putin regime, which is a real problem for the United States,” said McCarthy.
But while Trump’s legal concerns ought to be greatly eased, McCarthy warns Comey’s blistering attack on Trump’s character may do lasting damage.
“Even in not formally or informally accusing Trump of not committing a crime, Comey paints a very unflattering portrait of the president as somebody who is conniving, dishonest, and a real operator in a sense,” said McCarthy.
“I’m not smart enough to know how this is going to play itself out, but I wonder if people will care more about the fact that there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of criminal wrongdoing or even deeply inappropriate behavior that straddles the line of the law versus how unflattering the portrait of the president painted by Comey is,” said McCarthy.
McCarthy notes Hillary Clinton never faced any charges over her private server or for mishandling top secret classified information, but the revelation of her conduct ended up carrying immense political consequences.
Shortly after Comey finished his public testimony, Trump’s personal attorney Marc Kasowitz, publicly highlighted what he sees as Comey’s exoneration of Trump while simultaneously disputing Comey’s assertion that Trump demanded a loyalty pledge or asked for the Flynn probe to be dropped.
McCarthy says it makes sense for Kasowitz to point out the testimony that boosts Trump’s legal standing, but he says accusing Comey of not telling the truth in other areas was not smart.
“I wouldn’t be asking for a credibility contest between Trump and Comey. Trump has a long, long history of not having at 7 p.m. the position he took at 7 a.m. and he may have changed it two or three times in between. Whereas, Comey has contemporaneous notes and is pretty solid as he moves from event to event to event even when he tells the same story multiple times,” said McCarthy.
“Trump’s going to lose a credibility contest with Comey and there’s no reason for his lawyer to get him into one,” said McCarthy.
Another key revelation from Comey centers on former Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Comey confirmed he went public with his summary on the Clinton case and his recommendation not to prosecute because of Lynch’s clandestine meeting with Bill Clinton on an Arizona tarmac. He also revealed that Lynch pressured him not to publicly describe the Clinton probe as an “investigation” but rather as a “matter.”
Nonetheless, McCarthy says Lynch is not in any legal danger.
“I don’t think she’s in any legal trouble. I think Comey’s point, and it was a good one, is that it’s not one side that tries to massage and politicize law enforcement,” said McCarthy.
Comey Confirms Trump Claim, Trump’s Major Missteps, Celebrating Comey Day
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America dive into all things Comey as the former FBI Director gives his much awaited testimony. They point out that Comey confirmed President Trump’s contention that he was told three times that he was not under FBI investigation. They also highlight Trump’s inappropriate demands for Comey’s loyalty and the inconsistent reasons given for Comey’s firing. And they have some fun as Washington loses its mind with excitement over a congressional hearing.
‘All About Nothing’
Politicians and media are salivating over Wednesday’s Senate testimony from the top figures in the intelligence community and the opening testimony expected Thursday from former FBI Director James Comey concerning the investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign, but a former House intelligence committee chairman says so far nothing has really changed.
On Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein joined Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
While each of the men seemed reluctant to say there had been no prodding from the Trump administration on the Russia investigation, all of them rejected the idea that Trump or his team did anything inappropriate.
“In the three-plus years that I have been director of the National Security Agency, to the best of my recollection, I have never been directed to do anything I believe to be illegal, immoral, unethical or inappropriate,” said Adm. Rogers. “And to the best of my collection, during that same period of service, I do not recall ever feeling pressured to do so.”
Former House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra says that is the most important takeaway from Wednesday.
“What the senators did learn is exactly what they needed to learn, that the heads of these agencies and these departments did not feel any pressure at all from the president or from the White House to stop their investigations of what Russia did in the 2016 election, said Hoekstra, who served 18 years in the House. He is now chairman of Hoekstra Global Strategies.
He says those hoping for a room full of smoking guns came up empty.
“It really ended up being all about nothing. I think there were people expecting that they’d hear more about conversations between President Trump and some of these individuals who work with him and that there might have been a revelation that said they felt pressure from the president. Really, nothing materialized today,” said Hoekstra.
However, Hoekstra says he is glad to see strong bipartisan cooperation from the Senate committee, a process he says ought to bring confidence to the American people that the investigation is being handled responsibly.
That’s also what Hoekstra expects to materialize on Thursday, when the immensely hyped Comey testimony takes place before the same Senate committee. On Wednesday, the committee released Comey’s opening statement for Thursday.
Both parties are already seizing on different passages. Trump critics cite Comey’s contention that Trump demanded loyalty from Comey and repeatedly asked Comey to find a way to ease up on former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
At the same time, Comey seems to confirm that Trump himself was never personally under investigation and that Trump’s comments to him, while awkward and possibly inappropriate, did not constitute obstruction of justice or any other crime.
In the end Hoekstra suspects few minds will be changed.
“What the American people will probably see as a result is that the talking heads, for the next 24-48 hours, will both claim victory and some justification for their points of view. Then we’ll get to next week and something else will take over the headlines,” said Hoekstra, who says investigators should then focus on where the evidence is screaming for them to go.
“(Special Counsel Robert) Mueller’s got to focus on what the original intent of this investigation was: the Russians. What did the Russians do, not what did Trump do or what did Hillary do, what did their teams do or anything. What did the Russians do? That’s where the focus will hopefully now move to,” said Hoekstra.
Hoekstra says the American people will be the ultimate judges on whether the Democrats take their accusations too far. He admits Republicans would be fiercely critical if Comey had ever suggested President Obama had asked for his loyalty or to go easy on a political ally.
Still, he says Republicans could do themselves a world of political good by actually doing what they promised to do, rather than letting the Russia story suck all the oxygen out of Washington.
“They’d like to have better roads, better bridges, more income, more jobs and those sorts of things. They’re sick and tired of Washington,” said Hoekstra, who says there’s not reason for the GOP not to plow ahead on its legislative agenda.
As for the ongoing intelligence probe, Hoekstra says we also need to dig deeper into reports of extensive Obama administration surveillance on American citizens.
“I think there should be a lot of focus on the surveillance issue. This is an issue that I’m not totally comfortable with. I’d really like to better understand where NSA has evolved in terms of monitoring and unmasking Americans, where that has evolved to over the last seven to eight years since I’ve left the Hill,” said Hoekstra.
Weiner Faces Justice, Turks Beat Protesters in U.S., Lieberman for FBI?
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America react to disgraced ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner pleading guilty to sending obscene material to a minor and discuss how his character might have played a key role in the final days of the 2016 campaign. They also discuss the ugly beating of Kurdish protesters by the security for Turkish President Erdogan this week in Washington. And they scratch their heads over why Joe Lieberman is at the top of any list to lead the FBI.