5:07 AM 2/2/2023 - Kallstrom did it! Or so it smells ... James Kallstrom and Election 2016 | Kallstrom "says he's channeling agents' rage" (and his own too!) Did James Kallstrom fix the Election 2016 for Trump for $1.3 ml and the perspectives of the FBI Directorship? INVESTIGATE IN DEPTH THE FBI AND ITS ROLE IN ELECTION 2016! Charles McGonigal #McGonigal is just a small tip of the iceberg, the designated fall guy; and also the LEAD and source of the hidden information. Investigate his relationship with the NYPD!
#FBI #NYPD #DOJ DOJ
— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) February 2, 2023
INVESTIGATE IN DEPTH THE FBI AND ITS ROLE IN ELECTION 2016!
Charles McGonigal #McGonigal is just a small tip of the iceberg, the designated fall guy; and also the LEAD and source of the hidden information. Investigate his relationship with the NYPD! pic.twitter.com/K5V7ohOiBT
Pro-Trump former FBI official says he's channeling agents' rage
But according to a Daily Beast article published Thursday, Kallstrom first denied speaking at all to any active FBI agents and said his assessment of the mood of the bureau’s rank and file was based exclusively on conversations with retired agents. But later in that same interview, he said that he did interact with active agents who had reached out to him.
"Kallstrom’s foundation has received at least three major gifts from the Manhattan billionaire, two of which came during the campaign, totaling over $1.3 million."
Pro-Trump former FBI official says he's channeling agents' rage - POLITICO politico.com/story/2016/11/…
Michael Novakhov's favorite articles - 5:07 AM 2/2/2023
Kallstrom did it! Or so it smells ...
james kallstrom and Election 2016 - Google Search google.com/search?q=james…
Quote:
"But looking at available public evidence, the New York bureau’s actions actually did influence the campaign and helped hand the presidency to Donald Trump."
Opinion | The Real F.B.I. Election Culprit - The New York Times nytimes.com/2018/07/13/opi…
"Until congressional overseers make a serious attempt to get to the bottom of the New York field office’s role in the election, we’ll know they’re not serious about learning the truth."
Opinion | The Real F.B.I. Election Culprit - NYT
nytimes.com/2018/07/13/opi…
"We need to understand the truth of the 2016 election — not just for the record, but to take steps to prevent any interference in future elections."
Opinion | The Real F.B.I. Election Culprit - The New York Times nytimes.com/2018/07/13/opi…
The [NY] office has long been a source of meddlesome leaks, in part because of the intermixing of F.B.I. agents & NYPD officers who have close relationships with the city’s press corps.
Opinion | The Real F.B.I. Election Culprit - NYT nytimes.com/2018/07/13/opi…
Hint: It’s not Peter Strzok.
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By Garrett M. Graff
Mr. Graff is a journalist and historian.
In his testimony before two House committees on Thursday, the F.B.I. agent Peter Strzok testified that he could have altered the 2016 election — but didn’t. The information about Russian election interference, he said, “had the potential to derail, and quite possibly, defeat Mr. Trump. But the thought of exposing that information never crossed my mind.”
In hours of always hostile and sometimes even rude questioning, the Republican members of the committees never proved otherwise. The hearing was the latest effort by House Republicans to find any hint that there’s a “deep state” conspiracy against President Trump.
Once again, they came up with nothing. Despite the various investigations into the 2016 election and for all the scrutiny on the F.B.I. and agents like Mr. Strzok, one stone remains largely unturned — even in the most comprehensive look at the F.B.I., the 500-page report last month from Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector general.
As Mr. Horowitz told Capitol Hill last month, his investigation didn’t try to dive into who at the F.B.I. New York field office was driving the leaks that ultimately pushed some of the regrettable decisions that Mr. Horowitz excoriated in that very report.
But looking at available public evidence, the New York bureau’s actions actually did influence the campaign and helped hand the presidency to Donald Trump.
In the Horowitz report, Loretta Lynch, the former attorney general, recalled a conversation with James Comey in which he said, “it’s clear to me that there is a cadre of senior people in New York who have a deep and visceral hatred of Secretary Clinton.” F.B.I. agents in that office had a demonstrated propensity for leaks and arguably forced the bureau’s leadership’s hand in the final weeks of the election.
At that time, Rudy Giuliani gave voice on television to what he called the anti-Clinton “revolution going on inside the F.B.I.” Mr. Giuliani, whose former law firm Bracewell & Giuliani represented the F.B.I. Agents Association, seemed to boast in the final days of the campaign that he knew that a twist — like the revelations of emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop — was coming about Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, referring on Fox to “a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next few days.”
In his testimony on Thursday, Mr. Strzok said that “it caused me great concern” that Mr. Giuliani “had information about that — that he should not have had.”
Similarly, Mr. Giuliani’s longtime friend James Kallstrom, a former head of the New York F.B.I. office, was channeling on TV what he said was the F.B.I.’s anti-Clinton preference. Mr. Kallstrom, who founded a nonprofit that received more than $1.3 million in donations from Mr. Trump, told Megyn Kelly, “The agents are furious.” In one radio interview, Mr. Kallstrom even called the Clintons a “crime family” akin to the New York Mafia: “It’s like organized crime,” he said, and “the Clinton Foundation is a cesspool.”
In those final days, F.B.I. leaders appeared to be caught in a whirlwind of anti-Clinton rumors and speculation. In his report, Mr. Horowitz acknowledges the role that the threat of leaks played in the F.B.I. leadership’s decision to make the news about Mr. Weiner’s laptop public. Numerous agents and officials confirmed it: Mr. Strzok and Lisa Page, an F.B.I. lawyer at the time; James Rybicki, then the F.B.I. chief of staff; James Baker, then the F.B.I. general counsel; and Sally Yates, then deputy attorney general.
“The discussion was somebody in New York will leak this,” Mr. Baker said. “If we don’t put something out, somebody will leak it.”
“Numerous witnesses connected this concern about leaks specifically” to the New York office and “told us that F.B.I. leadership suspected that F.B.I. personnel” in that office were “responsible for leaks of information in other matters,” the inspector general’s report said. “Even accepting Comey’s assertion that leaks played no role in his decision, we found that, at a minimum, a fear of leaks influenced the thinking of those who were advising him.”
Ms. Yates told investigators that the F.B.I. explicitly cited the threat of leaks in explaining its decision to go public to the Justice Department. As she recalled, one reason the F.B.I. officials gave for why they felt Mr. Comey had to go to Congress “is that they felt confident that the New York field office would leak it and that it would come out regardless of whether he advised Congress or not.”
The F.B.I. agent corps today overwhelmingly fits the demographic profile of a Trump voter. During the 2016 campaign, in The Guardian, one agent said, “The F.B.I. is Trumpland.” In his testimony, Mr. Strzok all but laughed out loud when committee members pressed him Thursday on whether the whole F.B.I. was made up of Democrats.
The New York field office, one of only three headed not by a special-agent-in-charge but by a full assistant director, has always been a particular challenge for bureau leaders — it’s fiercely independent, combative and notoriously leaky. The office, which works closely with the local United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, a job held by both Mr. Comey and Mr. Giuliani, is sometimes referred to inside the Justice Department as the “Sovereign District of New York” for charting its own course.
The office has long been a source of meddlesome leaks, in part because of the intermixing of F.B.I. agents and New York Police Department officers who have close relationships with the city’s press corps. The lowest point in these relations came in 2009, when the investigation of the would-be subway bomber Najibullah Zazi — a critical emergency investigation that had remained secret when it was focused in Denver, Zazi’s hometown — leaked quickly once the would-be attacker and case arrived in New York, both to the media and to the suspect’s family itself.
Another key part of the fear of leaks in 2016 grew out of the cultural differences between the counterintelligence side of the F.B.I. — which handled the original Clinton email investigation and proved all-but-leak-free — and the more leaky criminal side, which was responsible for the Weiner laptop investigation and stumbled across the stray Clinton emails. “I knew that there were leaks coming — or appeared to be leaks about criminal investigation of the Clintons coming out of New York,” Mr. Comey told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos this spring.
We need to understand the truth of the 2016 election — not just for the record, but to take steps to prevent any interference in future elections. Mr. Strzok survived the worst the House Republicans could throw at him, including a threat to charge him with contempt for refusing to answer questions on the advice of the F.B.I.’s counsel about an ongoing investigation — a hallmark of the rule of law in ordinary times. Until congressional overseers make a serious attempt to get to the bottom of the New York field office’s role in the election, we’ll know they’re not serious about learning the truth.
Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) is a journalist and historian.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.
But according to a Daily Beast article published Thursday, Kallstrom first denied speaking at all to any active FBI agents and said his assessment of the mood of the bureau’s rank and file was based exclusively on conversations with retired agents. But later in that same interview, he said that he did interact with active agents who had reached out to him.
Kallstrom stuck with that story Thursday night on Fox News’s “The Kelly File,” where he disputed the Daily Beast’s assessment that he had claimed to have spoken with active FBI agents investigating Clinton.
“Well, they can write what they want. I never did claim I talked to the actual agents. I would never do that. I would never call up people that were investigating something and even put them on the spot. I wouldn’t do that,” Kallstrom said. “But I’ve talked to hundreds and hundreds of people in the FBI -- mostly retired people and some people that are currently on the job that are not directly involved, but, you know, it’s a small organization. You know, they know what’s going on.”
“And the agents are furious. And I haven’t walked anything back,” he continued. “I didn’t walk anything up that deserved to be walked back. So I don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Kallstrom, a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War, is the founder of the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation, which was the beneficiary of the fundraiser Trump held last January instead of attending a GOP primary debate in Iowa. According to the Daily Beast, Kallstrom’s foundation has received at least three major gifts from the Manhattan billionaire, two of which came during the campaign, totaling over $1.3 million.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who Kallstrom told the Daily Beast is “a very good friend” of his, has similarly claimed to have a pipeline of information coming from the FBI’s rank and file, offering a similar assessment of its mood to the one Kallstrom has. A week ago, Giuliani teased “a couple of surprises” from the Trump campaign just days before Comey announced that the FBI is examining additional, potentially new evidence related to Clinton’s email scandal. He declined to elaborate at the time what those surprises would be, but said they would be “enormously effective.”
Jason Miller, the senior communications adviser to Trump’s campaign, told the New York Times that Giuliani did not have advance notice of Comey’s announcement.
“Rudy was just having fun,” Miller said. “To keep the other side on their toes.”
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October 28, 2016: a Day That Will Live in Infamy
UPDATE: A lot more recent info on him based on that Daily Beast article
Kallstrom is the NYPD sex crimes investigator who investigated Weiner-but who also donated thousands of dollars to Trump after the breaking of the Hollywood Access video. Interesting look for a sex crimes investigator…
In this book, I’ve argued vigorously for the idea that as outrageous as the idea that Russia interfered in the election to hurt Clinton and to help Trump is, it’s just as outrageous that large swathes at the FBI did the same-and with the coordination and collusion of the same Trump campaign operatives as in Russia if you’re listening-Rudy Giuliani, Erik Prince, Jerome Corsi, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon-Bannon was certainly in the loop on anything involving Prince.
I’ve spoken a good deal of the ‘rogue agents’ at the FBI-though often it sounds like they were the majority in 2016; Comey himself in the IG report documented how tough it was to get many current and retired FBI agents-in what sounds less than a vocal minority than a vocal majority-to believe the choice not to indict Clinton was a fair one-when the real outrage was that there ever was an investigation to start with-as we saw in (Chapter A), there was no probable cause.
But who are these rogue agents? As noted in (Chapter B), you ought to talk to Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi who seem to know who many of them are. But also speak to Kallstrom, clearly a major ringleader among the rogue agents. The late and great Wayne Barret-who much of the research for this book regarding Roger Stone relies on-actually spoke to Kallstrom shortly before the election.
“Two days before FBI director James Comey rocked the world last week, Rudy Giuliani was on Fox, where he volunteered, un-prodded by any question: “I think he’s [Donald Trump] got a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next few days. I mean, I’m talking about some pretty big surprises.”
Pressed for specifics, he said: “We’ve got a couple of things up our sleeve that should turn this thing around.”
“The man who now leads “lock-her-up” chants at Trump rallies spent decades of his life as a federal prosecutor and then mayor working closely with the FBI, and especially its New York office.
FN: There is clearly at least some Poetic Justice in this world as Not My Mayor Giuliani is now being investigated by the SDNY-which he once was in charge of; there will be a good deal more of Poetic Justice in this world if Rudes joins the cell next to Trump’s other fixer cum lawyer, Michael Cohen.
End of FN.
“One of Giuliani’s security firms employed a former head of the New York FBI office, and other alumni of it. It was agents of that office, probing Anthony Weiner’s alleged sexting of a minor, who pressed Comey to authorize the review of possible Hillary Clinton-related emails on a Weiner device that led to the explosive letter the director wrote Congress.”
Hours after Comey’s letter about the renewed probe was leaked on Friday, Giuliani went on a radio show and attributed the director’s surprise action to “the pressure of a group of FBI agents who don’t look at it politically.”
LOL-don’t look at it politically. Sorry, that literally doesn’t pass the laugh test.
“The other rumor that I get is that there’s a kind of revolution going on inside the FBI about the original conclusion [not to charge Clinton] being completely unjustified and almost a slap in the face to the FBI’s integrity,” said Giuliani. “I know that from former agents. I know that even from a few active agents.”
Later on-as noted in (Chapter B) Rudy would being to change his story-as all Trumpster Deplorables end up doing-and claim that it was only retired agents-as it would be major trouble for an active agent to have leaked this information to Rudy.
As time as gone on, Giuliani’s ‘forgotten’ much of what he said before-like Roger Stone, like Jeff Sessions, like Papadopoulos-to get the truth out of the Coffee Boy, ply him with alcohol, like Donald Jr, like Trump himself; it’s a congenital amnesia of the Trumpster Deplorables.
But he had a lot to say prior to the Comey letter.
“Back in August, during a contentious CNN interview about Comey’s July announcement clearing Hillary Clinton of criminal charges, Giuliani advertised his illicit FBI sources, who circumvented bureau guidelines to discuss a case with a public partisan. “The decision perplexes me. It perplexes Jim Kallstrom, who worked for him. It perplexes numerous FBI agents who talk to me all the time. And it embarrasses some FBI agents.”
“Kallstrom is the former head of the New York FBI office, installed in that post in the ’90s by then-FBI director Louis Freeh, one of Giuliani’s longtime friends. Kallstrom has, like Giuliani, been on an anti-Comey romp for months, most often on Fox, where he’s called the Clintons a “crime family.” He has been invoking unnamed FBI agents who contact him to complain about Comey’s exoneration of Clinton in one interview after another, positioning himself as an apolitical champion of FBI values.”
As noted in a previous chapter after Clinton appointed Louis Freeh, Freeh repaid him by going on to see investigating the Democratic President as the top national priority.
Last October, after President Obama told 60 Minutes that the Clinton emails weren’t a national security issue, Megyn Kelly interviewed Kallstrom on Fox. “You know a lot of the agents involved in this investigation,” she said. “How angry must they be tonight?”
“I know some of the agents,” said Kallstrom. “I know some of the supervisors and I know the senior staff. And they’re P.O.’d, I mean no question. This is like someone driving another nail in the coffin of the criminal justice system.”
Kallstrom declared that “if it’s pushed under the rug,” the agents “won’t take that sitting down.” Kelly confirmed: “That’s going to get leaked.”
As noted in (Chapter B), Jerrold Nalder has vowed to investigate the leaks by the rogue FBI agents when he becomes Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee next year. In investigating he clearly needs to hear from Kallstrom and what he said to Kelly here seems to be a prima facie public confession that the rogue agents were leaking information-and that Kallstrom himself was a top leaker.
When Comey cleared Clinton this July, Kallstrom was on Fox again, declaring: “I’ve talked to about 15 different agents today—both on the job and off the job—who are basically worried about the reputation of the agency they love.” The number grew dramatically by Labor Day weekend when Comey released Clinton’s FBI interview and other documents, and Kallstrom told Kelly he was talking to “50 different people in and out of the agency, retired agents,” all of whom he said were “basically disgusted” by Comey’s latest release.
FN: Again, as noted above, Comey himself in the IG report described a similar picture-a great number of both former and active FBI agents thought it was some how unfair that Clinton wasn’t indicted even though there was never probable cause for it in the first place.
By Sept. 28, Kallstrom said he’d been contacted by hundreds of people, including “a lot of retired agents and a few on the job,” declaring the agents “involved in this thing feel like they’ve been stabbed in the back.” So, he said, “I think we’re going to see a lot more of the facts come out in the course of the next few months. That’s my prediction.”
FN: Again, as noted above, Comey himself in the IG report described a similar picture-a great number of both former and active FBI agents thought it was some how unfair that Clinton wasn’t indicted even though there was never probable cause for it in the first place.
At the same time, of course, the rogue NYPD agents had ‘discovered’ Huma Abedin’s emails to Clinton on her husband’s laptop. They then left them sitting for a month before springing it on Comey at the last minute forcing his hand into writing the letter that flipped an election.
“Kallstrom, whose exchanges with active agents about particular cases are as contrary to FBI policy as Giuliani’s, formally and passionately endorsed Trump this week on Stuart Varney’s Fox Business show, adding that Clinton is a “pathological liar.”
This was just a week prior to election day. Sounds ‘apolitical’ and ‘nonpartisan’ to me.
But then, Kallstrom’s political ties to Trump during the 2016 election were much deeper than understood-in fact they haven’t been known about at all.
“Kallstrom, who served as a Marine before becoming an agent, didn’t mention that a charity he’d founded decades ago and that’s now called the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation, was the single biggest beneficiary of Trump’s promise to raise millions for veterans when he boycotted the Iowa primary debate. A foundation official said that Trump’s million-dollar donation this May, atop $100,000 that he’d given in March, were the biggest individual grants it had ever received. The Trump Foundation had contributed another $230,000 in prior years and Trump won the organization’s top honor at its annual Waldorf Astoria gala in 2015.”
In other words you had a political beneficiary of Trump’s handling the Weiner investigation-that led to the ‘discovery’ of Huma’s emails that led to Comey’s indefensible ‘letter’ that handed the election to Trump. Small world.
While Cohen pled to paying hush money I wonder what campaign laws may well have been violated here-Trump’s payments to Kallstrom’s foundation, then Kallstron’s own donations to Trump post Hollywood Access-proving if nothing else that Kallstrom’s defense of sexual crime victims is a partisan sham.
“The charity, which Kallstrom has chaired without pay since its founding, says it has given away $64 million in scholarships and other aid to veteran families. Rush Limbaugh is a director and has given it enormous exposure on his show and helped it fundraise. Its executive director also worked at the highest levels of New York Governor George Pataki’s Republican administration, and its vice president is also the regional vice president for Trump Hotels in the New York area. The FBI New York office, the charity’s 2015 newsletter noted, then employed 100 former Marines.”
Again, sounds nonpartisan to me.
“Kallstrom’s victory tour this weekend also included an appearance on Fox with former Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, another close associate of Pataki’s, who complained on air that she’d been the victim in 2006 when word emerged that the U.S attorney and FBI were probing her in the midst of a race she eventually lost to Andrew Cuomo to become New York Attorney General.”
Her concern about the political impact of law enforcement leaks, though, didn’t extend to Democrat Hillary Clinton. “He couldn’t hold on to this any longer,” Kallstrom said of Comey. “Who knows, maybe the locals would’ve done it,” he added, a reference to leaks that elicited glee from Pirro, who echoed: “New York City, that’s my thing!”
As documented in (Chapter C) Roger Stone said the same thing in his interview with the Intercept-that Comey’s hand was forced-otherwise ‘the locals’ would leak.
“In a wide-ranging phone interview on Tuesday with The Daily Beast, Kallstrom first repeated his claim that he gets hundreds and hundreds of calls and emails but stressed they all came from retired agents, adding that he didn’t “want to talk about agents on the job.” Then he acknowledged that he did interact with “active agents.” The agents mostly contacted him before the recent Comey letter because “in all but two cases,” they agreed with what he was saying in his TV appearances, noting that those two exceptions both thought “I should be more supportive of Comey.”
“Kallstrom adamantly denied he’d ever said he was in contact with agents “involved” in the Clinton case, insisting that he didn’t even know “the agents’ names.” He asked if this story was “a hit piece,” and contended that it was “offensive” to even suggest that he’d communicated with those agents.
As we saw in the above quotes, his denial directly contradicts what he’d previously said. Wayne Barret called him on it:
“When I emailed him two quotes where he made that claim, he responded: “I know agents in the building who used to work for me. I don’t know any agents in the Washington field office involved directly in the investigation.”
He declined to explain why Megyn Kelly stated as a fact that he was in contact with agents “involved” in the case. Asked in a follow up email if he suggested or encouraged any particular actions in his exchanges with active agents, Kallstrom replied: “No.”
What about what he said in September about ‘more facts in the Clinton case coming out?’
And, though he predicted in September that more facts about the Clinton case would soon come out, he told me he was “surprised” by the Comey letter. Calling Giuliani a “very good friend,” who he’s seen in TV studios a couple of times recently when they were both doing appearances, Kallstrom said he thought Giuliani was more likely referring to WikiLeaks revelations or videotapes from Project Veritas when he teased big surprises to come.”
“Kallstrom said he hasn’t spoken to Trump for months, though he did email Trump’s office the day he endorsed him and got a thank you response from an aide. He says he first met Trump when he solicited a donation from him for a Vietnam Vet memorial and that they’d see each other—usually at public events and dinners—over the years, sometimes as often as two or three times a year. Kallstrom said he’d have breakfast at the Plaza with his wife and visit with Trump and his kids, who he got to know at an early age.”
“When Trump owned casinos in Atlantic City, he allowed Kallstrom’s organization to hold fundraisers “pro bono” there. Trump became a major supporter of New York’s Police Athletic League, run for decades by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, all moves that endeared him to law enforcement officials in jurisdictions where he did business.”
Despite all these ties to Trump and the Republican party, Kallstrom insists with a straight face that he’s ‘apolitical.’
“Despite his ties to Pataki, Limbaugh, and Trump, Kallstrom says he’s apolitical and has never been involved in a campaign, including Trump’s now. He says he’s a registered independent, and that the people he’s known in the FBI over all his years are as nonpartisan as he is.”
He donated to Trump after Hollywood Access and was the beneficiary of Trump’s charity event during the campaign and has deep ties to Rush Limbaugh but he’s ‘nonpartisan.’ Well Limbaugh never chooses between Republicans and Democrats, so, makes perfect sense…
And hey, he’s a registered ‘independent’ so it’s impossible he could be politically motivated… LOL. Sorry, failing the laugh test again.
So how is it that there is so little public knowledge of this? Because-as noted that earlier chapter the FBI is a very Republican place-in fact there’s never been a Democratic FBI Director before in its 111 history.
“But, as quiet as it’s kept, no Democrat has ever been appointed FBI director. Four Democratic presidents, starting with FDR’s selection of J. Edgar Hoover in 1935, have instead picked Republicans, including Obama’s 2013 nomination of Comey, who was confirmed 93 to 1. This tally does not include the seven acting directors, who were named for brief periods over the last 81 years. For the first time in FBI history, the agency is now run by a director who isn’t a Republican, since Comey announced in a congressional hearing this year that though a lifelong Republican, having donated to John McCain and Mitt Romney, he had recently changed his registration (he did not say how he is currently registered).”
“It’s not just the man at the top who’s invariably a Republican. Like most law enforcement agencies, the FBI hierarchy and line staff has a Republican bent—it’s a white, male, usually Catholic, and conservative culture.”
“Giuliani and Kallstrom claim that the agents revolting against Comey’s handling of Hillary Clinton were doing it because they want apoltical investigations, with all targets treated the same. But neither of them, much less FBI brass or agents, were publicly upset when the worst Justice Department scandal in modern history exploded in 2007, with Karl Rove, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and the Bush White House swamped by allegations that they’d tried to force out nine U.S. attorneys and replace them with “loyal Bushies,” as Gonzales’s chief of staff put it. Democratic officials, candidates and fundraisers were five times as likely to be prosecuted by Bush’s justice than Republicans.”
Indeed, when explaining Comeygate-as well as the fact that Russiagate was totally kept under the radar-the long GOP partisan history at the FBI can’t be ignored.
Then at the top of the polls in the 2008 presidential race, Giuliani had to answer questions about it and said that he thought Gonzales should get “the benefit of the doubt,” calling him “a decent man” a few months before he resigned. “We should try to remove on both sides as much of the partisanship as possible,” lectured Giuliani. He recalled that strict rules were put into place while he was at the top levels of justice in the aftermath of Watergate limiting contact between law enforcement and political figures, a particular irony in view of the fact that he talks freely today about engaging in just such conversations on national television, oblivious to the fact that he is now a “political figure.”
FN: Even more ironic now with Rudy’s role in both Russia if you’re listening and Ukraine if you’re listening-as well as Emailgate.
“Giuliani’s mentor, Michael Mukasey, who succeeded Gonzales as attorney general, appointed a special investigator to examine the U.S. attorney scandal and she concluded that no laws had been broken. It was later reported that four days before Mukasey named this special prosecutor, a federal appeals court vacated seven of eight convictions in a case she supervised in Connecticut, ruling that the team suppressed exculpatory evidence, including the notes of an FBI agent. Kallstrom contends he didn’t say anything about the blatant partisan interference then because he was “never asked to comment,” though he had been a law enforcement consultant for CBS News in about the same time frame. How he became a frequent Fox commentator now is unclear.”
“It’s clear enough, though, why when Comey sent a note to FBI staff on Friday explaining his decision to inform Congress about the renewed Clinton probe, the scoop about that internal memo went to Fox News. Why Kallstrom gets booked to call the Clintons a “crime family.” Why Clinton Cash author Peter Schweitzer, caught in a web of Breitbart and Trump conflicts, would announce on Fox that he was asked in August to sit down with New York office FBI agents investigating the Clinton Foundation (with The New York Times reporting this week that the agents were relying largely on his discredited work when they pitched a fullscale probe).”
FN: As thin as the predication of Emailagte was the investigation into the Clinton Foundation was literally predicated by Clinton Cash; yet McCabe’s leaking the fake of this baseless and partisan investigation on three days after Comey’s letter was supposed to demonstrate bias against Trump.
Fox is the pipeline for the fifth column inside the bureau, a battalion that says it’s doing God’s work, chasing justice against those who are obstructing it, while, in fact, it’s doing GOP work, even on the eve of a presidential election.
Post the Dems victory in November 6 Congressional elections there’s already talk about 2020. I don’t engage in much of that myself-my focus right now is the new Dem House-can’t wait for accountability to return to Washington-hopefully Pelosi will be Speaker and it seems likely she will be-Marcia Fudge basically has opened the door in saying she would support Pelosi if she agrees to only serve as Speaker two more years-something Pelosi has already agreed to.
But here is the only strong feeling I have in terms of what a hypothetical 2021 Dem WH should pursue: a Democratic FBI Director. I know-the GOP will no doubt accuse President Kamala Harris or President Corey Booker of partisanship.
UPDATE 2.0: It seems to me Kamala Harris should add that to her platform-a pledge to nominate a Democratic FBI Director. assuming we can find any actual Democratic agents. I mean I don’t think it’s too partisan of me as a Democrat to suggest that we have a Democratic FBI Director after 100 years do you?
FN: At the moment a President Joe Biden or President Elizabeth Warren seems more likely though Harris apparently had a very good night last night in Iowa-she will need more. I still think she should discuss her own work on the Russia investigation from the Senate Judiciary and tie it to the current impeachment investigation. She’s simply not utilizing some of her best assets.
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