Category Archives: FBI

What is the Justice Department Investigating and Prosecuting Anyway?

Posted on by

A sudden decision to drop the case against Marc Turi, the legitimate arms dealer approved by Hillary to move weapons to Libya, oh…no…then to Qatar and then not at all had his home raided. Why? Good question except Turi Defense was approved not never launched any shipments. The case against him fell apart mostly due to the notion the government would have to produce documents of the case and background for legal discovery and it would have further tainted Hillary Clinton’s actions regarding Qaddafi and her actions in Libya. Hummm okay….what else? All kinds of cases and questions, try a few of these below. Remember too that Obama issued a pardon for Iranians in the United States during the prisoner swap with Iran. Don’t forget those pesky 5 Taliban commanders released for Bowe Bergdahl.

Meanwhile:

Hamas On Campus, and Hamas is a terror organization, since 1997.

 Introduction:

Across America college campuses are being flooded with pro-terrorist propaganda by groups supported by college administrators and student funds. These groups are led by Students for Justice in Palestine but they include the broad coalitions of the left which have become the breeding grounds for a new anti-Semitism. Boycott, Divest and Sanctions resolutions targeting the state of Israel for destruction are passed to chants of “Allahu Ahkbar,” while Jewish students are the targets of verbal and physical harassments which have reached epidemic proportions. This is a report on the 10 schools most supportive of the efforts of Students for Justice in Palestine and its allies, to demonize the state of Israel and bring about its destruction.

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) portrays itself as a typical student organization and multicultural group advocating for “social justice” in the Middle East, but this image is a cleverly constructed disguise. Students for Justice in Palestine is not concerned about justice in Palestine where the Hamas regime steals hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for humanitarian aid and uses it to dig terror tunnels whose only purpose is to murder Jews. In truth, SJP is a pro-terror organization that is funded by anti-Israel Hamas terrorists for the purpose of destroying Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, and committing genocide against its Jewish population as prescribed in the Hamas charter.

Visit Stop the Jew-Hatred on Campus. 

1. Brooklyn College (CUNY)

2. San Diego State University

3. San Francisco State University

4. Tufts University

5.  University of California Berkeley

6.  University of California Irvine

7.  University of California Los Angeles

8.  University of Chicago

9.  University of Tennessee Knoxville

10. Vassar College

More here from Front Page.

**** Then there is Mosed Omar.

Federal prosecutors — acting abruptly and without public explanation — have moved to drop a controversial criminal passport fraud case that critics alleged stemmed from coercive interrogations at the U.S. embassy in Yemen.

Earlier this year, a grand jury in San Francisco indicted Mosed Omar on passport fraud charges linked to a statement he signed during a 2012 visit to the U.S. diplomatic post in the unstable Middle Eastern nation.

After signing the statement saying he’d used a false name when he was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1978, Omar’s U.S. passport was confiscated and a request for a passport for his daughter was denied. Omar eventually made it back to the U.S. on a temporary travel permit. More here from Politico.

There was the case of Huma Abedin not only working officially at the State Department for Hillary Clinton, but at the same time she was on the payroll of Teneo. Has this investigation and case advanced in any form? Not so much.

It seems that double dipping, meaning working for the Federal government and other outside organizations is actually quite common and this too includes staffers working for legislators in both houses of Congress. So, this does tell us there is nepotism perhaps and for sure conflicts of interest. How so you ask? Words matter and members of Congress figured out that the word ‘fellowship’ is best used to describe the work…..sheesh….

POGO: The U.S. Congress allows Members to staff their offices with Fellows who are paid by corporations, foundations, universities, non-profits, and other outside private entities.

The Fellows are required to abide by all the laws, rules, and standards governing permanent Congressional staff members. Indeed, they are often indistinguishable from permanent staff members. They work on writing legislation and Floor speeches, and represent the Member in meetings with other offices and constituents.

POGO reviewed 2,014 publicly available reports on Senate fellows and found several examples of the appearance of a conflict of interest, and that Senators did not consistently disclose fellows whose salary was paid by a third party. The House does not maintain records on Congressional Fellows at all.

On the Senate side, fellows and their supervisors are required to file reports detailing when they began their fellowship, how much money they’re making, what entity is paying their salary, and how many hours they’ve worked. Senate rules mandate that new fellows file their “Agreement to Comply with the Senate Code of Official Conduct,” known as form 41.4, at the beginning of their fellowship, at the end of each calendar quarter, and at the end of the fellowship. The fellow’s supervisor must file a “Report on Individuals Who Perform Senate Services,” known as form 41.6, which is often signed by the Senator. While these forms are available to the public, they are not electronically available and anyone interested in seeing them must visit the Senate Office of Public Records during business hours.

Is there a code of conduct, formal disclosures and rules that apply here? Yes….is there compliance? Not so much. Essentially, this is but another means to lobby members of Congress and to ensure earmarks are designated, and they are.

Require disclosure in the House of Representatives

The House Rules committee should introduce language into the Code of Official Conduct that would require Representatives to report when their office employs an individual who is compensated by any source outside of the United States Government. Such a report should include the identity of the source of the compensation and the amount or rate of compensation.

More oversight in the Senate

Senate reporting of Fellows who are paid by corporations, foundations, universities, non-profits, and other outside private entities is falling short.  The Senate Ethics Committee needs to increase its oversight over the Congressional Fellows reporting requirements, actively checking with Member offices to make sure they don’t have any Fellows employed for years they don’t report any. The Senate Ethics Committee should also increase training for Member offices on what they are required to report, at the start of each Congress it should hold a series of trainings for all Member offices.

Both Chambers should require electronic filing of these disclosures, in a publically accessible format

The Senate, and House as it begins to require reporting on Fellows, should transition to an electronic filing system that can be accessed by the public. This will allow for more uniform participation by Member offices and more public oversight over the Congressional Fellowship programs. Read on here for further and exact details from POGO. Fabulous investigative work and causes for more questions to be asked and solutions to be applied.

 

 

 

We Cant Find 44 Afghani Military Members in USA, AWOL

Posted on by

From last month: The missing soldiers were identified as Maj. Jan Mohammad Arash, Cpt. Mohammad Nasir Askarzada, and Cpt. Noorullah Aminyar.Earlier, two Afghan policemen identified as 22-year-old Mohammad Yasin Ataye and 24-year-old Mohd Naweed Samimi vanished during a training visit in United States last week.The two were among the 31 Afghan police officers who are on a visit in United States to work with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

 

**** Some have been missing for as long as 2 years…note missing….in 2 years they have not been located…..sigh

Exclusive: Dozens of Afghan troops AWOL from military training in U.S.

Reuters: Forty-four Afghan troops visiting the United States for military training have gone missing in less than two years, presumably in an effort to live and work illegally in America, Pentagon officials said.

Although the number of disappearances is relatively small — some 2,200 Afghan troops have received military training in the United States since 2007 — the incidents raise questions about security and screening procedures for the programs.

They are also potentially embarrassing for U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration, which has spent billions of dollars training Afghan troops as Washington seeks to extricate itself from the costly, 15-year-old war. The disclosure could fuel criticism by supporters of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has accused the Obama administration of failing to properly vet immigrants from Muslim-majority countries and has pledged a much tougher stance if he wins.

While other foreign troops on U.S. military training visits have sometimes run away, a U.S. defense official said that the frequency of Afghan troops going missing was concerning and “out of the ordinary.”

Since September alone, eight Afghan troops have left military bases without authorization, Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump told Reuters. He said the total number of Afghan troops who have gone missing since January 2015 is 44, a number that has not previously been disclosed.

“The Defense Department is assessing ways to strengthen eligibility criteria for training in ways that will reduce the likelihood of an individual Afghan willingly absconding from training in the U.S. and going AWOL (absent without leave),” Stump said.

Afghans in the U.S. training program are vetted to ensure they have not participated in human rights abuses and are not affiliated with militant groups before being allowed into the United States, Stump said.

The defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added there was no evidence any of those who had absconded had carried out crimes or posed a threat to the United States.

Go here for the photo collection by Reuters

The Afghan army has occasionally been infiltrated by Taliban militants who have carried out attacks on Afghan and U.S. troops, but such incidents have become less frequent due to tougher security measures.

Trump, whose other signature immigration plan is to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, has proposed a temporary ban on Muslims seeking to enter the country, and has said that law enforcement officers should engage in more racial profiling to curb the threat of attacks on American soil.

After Omar Mateen, whose father was born in Afghanistan, killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando in June, Trump said an immigration ban would last until “we are in a position to properly screen these people coming into our country.”

BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN TRAINING

Washington has allocated more than $60 billion since 2002 to train and equip Afghan troops, but security remains precarious and the Taliban are estimated to control more territory in Afghanistan than at any time since 2001 when the U.S. invaded.

Earlier this year Obama shelved plans to cut the U.S. force in Afghanistan nearly in half by year’s end, opting instead to keep 8,400 troops there through the end of his presidency in January.

The military training program brings troops to the United States from around the world in order to build on military relations and improve capabilities for joint operations.

In some cases, officials said, the Afghan students who went missing were in the United States for elite Army Ranger School and intelligence-gathering training. The officials did not identify the missing troops or their rank.

Even though the troops were in the United States for military training, they were not necessarily always on a military base.

If students under the military program are absent from training for more than 24 hours, they are considered to be “absent without leave” (AWOL) and the Department of Homeland Security is notified.

In one case the Pentagon confirmed that an Afghan student had been detained by Canadian police while attempting to enter Canada from the United States.

It was unclear how many others have been located by U.S. authorities, and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Experts said low morale and insufficient training to fight the Taliban could explain the troops leaving, in addition to a dearth of economic opportunities in the impoverished country.

“They face a formidable enemy, with very limited resources and many Afghan troops aren’t getting paid on time,” said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia specialist at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Washington think-tank.

DHS Officially Issues Alert on Election Hacking

Posted on by

Related reading: Hacking an election is about influence and disruption, not voting machines

DHS Issues Alert on U.S. Election Hacking

The United States Department of Homeland Security has issued an Intelligence Assessment on the Cyber Threats and Vulnerabilities to U.S. Election Infrastructure. The report, which primarily downplays the risk of hacking election systems appears to conflict with recent FBI Director testimony stating that at least 20 states have been electronically probed with four suffering hacking related intrusions. The report does note that “multiple elements of US election infrastructure are potentially vulnerable to cyber intrusions. The risk to US computer-enabled election systems varies from county to county, between types of devices used, and among processes used by polling stations.”

The key judgments also include:

  • DHS has no indication that adversaries or criminals are planning cyber operations against US election infrastructure that would change the outcome of the coming US election. Multiple checks and redundancies in US election infrastructure—including diversity of systems, non-Internet connected voting machines, pre-election testing, and processes for media, campaign, and election officials to check, audit, and validate results—make it likely that cyber manipulation of US election systems intended to change the outcome of a national election would be detected.
  • We judge cybercriminals and criminal hackers are likely to continue to target personally identifiable information (PII), such as that available in voter registration databases. We have no indication, however, that criminals are planning theft of voter information to disrupt or alter US computer-enabled election infrastructure.

Other elements of the report, note the resiliency of the voting infrastructure, but also the potential for nation-state disruption.

No Indication of Cyber Operations to Change Vote Outcome

  • DHS has no indication that adversaries or criminals are planning cyber operations against US election infrastructure that would change the outcome of the coming US election. Multiple checks and redundancies in US election infrastructure—including diversity of systems, non-Internet connected voting machines, pre-election testing, and processes for media, campaigns and election officials to check, audit, and validate results—make it likely that cyber manipulation of US election systems intended to change the outcome of a national election would be detected.
  • We assess that successfully mounting widespread cyber operations against US voting machines, enough to affect a national election, would require a multiyear effort with significant human and information technology resources available only to a nation-state. The level of effort and scale required to change the outcome of a national election, however, would make it nearly impossible to avoid detection. This assessment is based on the diversity of systems, the need for physical access to compromise voting machines, and the security and pre-election testing employed by state and local officials.* In addition, the vast majority of localities engage in logic and accuracy testing, which work to ensure voting machines operate and tabulate as expected—before, during, and after the election.
  • We judge, as a whole, voter registration databases are resilient to systemic, nationwide cyber manipulation because of the diverse systems and security measures surrounding them. Targeted intrusions against individual voter registration databases, however, are possible. Additionally, with illicit access, manipulation of voter data, or disruptions to their availability, may impact a voter’s ability to vote on Election Day. Most jurisdictions, however, still rely on paper voter rolls or electronic poll books that are not connected in real-time to voter registration databases, limiting the possible impacts in 2016.
  • Voting precincts in more than 3,100 counties across the United States use nearly 50 different types of voting machines produced by 14 different manufacturers. The diversity in voting systems and versions of voting software provides significant security by complicating attack planning. Most voting machines do not have active connections to the Internet.
  • We assess the impact of an intrusion into vote tabulation systems would likely be contained to the manipulation of unofficial Election Night reporting results, which would not impact the certified outcome of an election, but could undermine public confidence in the results. In addition, local election officials, media organizations, and political campaigns carefully monitor local voting patterns, particularly in electorally significant jurisdictions, and are likely to detect and begin investigating potential anomalies quickly.

Non-State Actors Likely To Continue Targeting PII, Potentially Attempt Disruption

  • We judge cybercriminals and criminal hackers are likely to continue to target voter PII. We have no indication, however, that cybercriminals are planning theft of voter information to disrupt or alter computer-enabled US election infrastructure voting. Politically-motivated criminal hackers could attempt temporary disruptive cyber attacks, such as denial-of-service (DoS) attacks or web defacements against election-related websites, in the lead-up to or during the election process. Disruptive attacks could target public-facing state and local government websites, potentially including election infrastructure used to report election results to the general public and media; however, we judge this activity would likely have little impact on the voting process itself.
  • Unknown cyber actors in mid-July used an open-source scanning tool to identify and exploit a structured query language (SQL) injection vulnerability and exfiltrate PII from a Midwestern state board of elections website, according to FBI sources with excellent access and information provided by a cybersecurity organization supporting states. In at least three other states, voting and non-voting related websites during the same period observed unsuccessful SQL injection attacks from unknown actors, according to the same reporting.
  • Cybercriminals routinely attempt exploitation of misconfigured and vulnerable websites and webservers via SQL injection, brute force login attempts, cross-site scripting, and other publicly known vulnerabilities, according to DHS reporting from sources with direct access.
  • Criminal hackers routinely engage in disruptive attacks such as website defacement and DoS attacks, through exploiting publicly known vulnerabilities and for-hire DoS tools, according to DHS reporting from reliable sources with direct access.

Vulnerability of Computer-Enabled Election Systems

  • We assess multiple elements of US election infrastructure are potentially vulnerable to cyber intrusions. The risk to computer-enabled election systems, however, varies from county to county, between types of devices used and among processes used by polling stations.
  • Electronic Voting Systems: Security researchers have repeatedly demonstrated in laboratory testing environments that voting machines are vulnerable to compromise, usually with physical access, and such compromises could result in the manipulation of vote totals. Election outcomes would only be impacted if the compromise happened on a large scale across multiple machines or jurisdictions—which we judge to be beyond the capability of any adversary—or in cases of smaller local elections where the margin of victory is at a smaller scale.
  • Voter Registration Databases: Online voter registration systems provide a potential point of vulnerability to enable cyber actors to gain illicit access to voter registration databases. Cyber actors have exploited these portals in the past to gain illicit access to voter information. Compromises of voter registration databases have resulted in the potential release of PII, but not the modification of records—with the exception of one unconfirmed incident of voter registration manipulation reported by US media. The exposure of voters’ information would have limited impact on the integrity of the election process; however, it could undermine confidence in the system and provide the ability to conduct further cyber operations.
  • Public Dissemination of Voting Results: State government information technology solutions generally include a public-facing Internet-connected portion that is used to report election results to the general public and media, which some states have begun migrating to the cloud due to Election Day demand. Vulnerabilities in the public-facing Internet portion could be used to display inaccurate vote results to the public and media. Election Day results are not the official results of the state or local jurisdiction.

election-hacking

NSA Hacker Secretly Arrested

Posted on by

N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

NYT’s/ WASHINGTON— The F.B.I. secretly arrested a National Security Agency contractor in recent weeks and is investigating whether he stole and disclosed highly classified computer codes developed to hack into the networks of foreign governments, according to several senior law enforcement and intelligence officials.

The theft raises the embarrassing prospect that for the second time in three years an insider has managed to steal highly damaging secret information from the N.S.A. In 2013, Edward J. Snowden, who was also a contractor for the agency, took a vast trove of documents that were later passed to journalists, exposing N.S.A. surveillance programs in the United States and abroad.

The information believed stolen by this contractor — who like Mr. Snowden worked for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, which is responsible for building and operating many of the agency’s most sensitive cyberoperations — appears to be different in nature from Mr. Snowden’s theft.

The contractor arrested in recent weeks is suspected of taking the highly classified “source code” developed by the agency to break into computer systems of adversaries like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. Two officials said that some of the information the contractor is suspected of taking was dated.

TheJusticeDept says it has filed charges against a govt contractor with top secret clearance, accuses him of taking classified documents

**** In the biggest hack of the NSA since the Snowden scandal in 2013, in mid-August we reported that a mysterious group calling itself the “Shadow Brokers” had managed to hack the NSA’s Equation Group –  a government cyberattack hacking group associated with the NSA, and released a bunch of the organization’s hacking tools. The “group” also notably said that if it received 1,000,000 Bitcoins, worth roughly $560 million at the time, it would release all the hacked files. As the NYT reported moments ago, an NSA contractor, Harold Thomas Martin III, age 51, from Glen Burnie, MD was arrested on August 29th, with the FBI investigating whether he is the party responsible for stealing and disclosing highly classified computer codes developed to hack into the networks of foreign governments. More here.

****

Harold Thomas Martin III of Glen Burnie, Maryland, was charged in a criminal complaint. Among the classified documents found with Martin, the government says, were six that contain sensitive intelligence – meaning they were produced through sensitive government sources or methods that are critical to national security issues – and date back to 2014. All the documents were clearly marked as classified information, according to the criminal complaint.

Investigators also found stolen property valued at more than $1,000 at Martin’s residence or vehicle. He voluntarily agreed to an interview, officials said.

“Martin at first denied, and later when confronted with specific documents, admitted he took documents and digital files from his work assignment to his residence and vehicle that he knew were classified,” according to the complaint, despite not having the authorization to do so.

The Justice Department’s top national security official, John Carlin, said in Boston that the arrest pointed to the threat posed by insiders.

Martin has been in custody since a court appearance in August.  Associated Press

When Documents and Facts Prove the DOJ and FBI are Corrupt, Libya

Posted on by

Obama DOJ drops charges against alleged provider of Libyan weapons

Arms dealer had threatened to expose Hillary Clinton’s talks about arming anti-Qadhafi rebels.

Politico: The Obama administration is moving to dismiss charges against an arms dealer it had accused of selling weapons that were destined for Libyan rebels.

Lawyers for the Justice Department on Monday filed a motion in federal court in Phoenix to drop the case against the arms dealer, an American named Marc Turi, whose lawyers also signed the motion.

The deal averts a trial that threatened to cast additional scrutiny on Hillary Clinton’s private emails as Secretary of State, and to expose reported Central Intelligence Agency attempts to arm rebels fighting Libyan leader Moammar Qadhafi.

Government lawyers were facing a Wednesday deadline to produce documents to Turi’s legal team, and the trial was officially set to begin on Election Day, although it likely would have been delayed by protracted disputes about classified information in the case.

A Turi associate asserted that the government dropped the case because the proceedings could have embarrassed Clinton and President Barack Obama by calling attention to the reported role of their administration in supplying weapons that fell into the hands of Islamic extremist militants.

“They don’t want this stuff to come out because it will look really bad for Obama and Clinton just before the election,” said the associate.

In the dismissal motion, prosecutors say “discovery rulings” from U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell contributed to the decision to drop the case. The joint motion asks the judge to accept a confidential agreement to resolve the case through a civil settlement between the State Department and the arms broker.

“Our position from the outset has been that this case never should have been brought and we’re glad it’s over,” said Jean-Jacques Cabou, a Perkins Coie partner serving as court-appointed defense counsel in the case. “Mr Turi didn’t break the law….We’re very glad the charges are being dismissed.”

Under the deal, Turi admits no guilt in the transactions he participated in, but he agreed to refrain from U.S.-regulated arms dealing for four years. A $200,000 civil penalty will be waived if Turi abides by the agreement.

A State Department official confirmed the outlines of the agreement.

“Mr. Turi cooperated with the Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls in its review and proposed administrative settlement of the alleged violations,” said the official, who asked not be named. “Based on a compliance review, DDTC alleged that Mr. Turi…engaged in brokering activities for the proposed transfer of defense articles to Libya, a proscribed destination under [arms trade regulations,] despite the Department’s denial of…requests for the required prior approval of such activities.”

Turi adviser Robert Stryk of the government relations and consulting firm SPG accused the government of trying to scapegoat Turi to cover up Clinton’s mishandling of Libya.

“The U.S. government spent millions of dollars, went all over the world to bankrupt him, and destroyed his life — all to protect Hillary Clinton’s crimes,” he said, alluding to the deadly Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Republicans hold Clinton responsible for mishandling the circumstances around that attack. And Stryk said that Turi was now weighing book and movie deals to tell his story, and to weigh in on the Benghazi attack.

Representatives of the Justice Department, the White House and Clinton’s presidential campaign either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment on the case or the settlement.

Turi was indicted in 2014 on four felony counts: two of arms dealing in violation of the Arms Export Control Act and two of lying to the State Department in official applications. The charges accused Turi of claiming that the weapons involved were destined for Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, when the arms were actually intended to reach Libya.

Turi’s lawyers argued that the shipments were part of a U.S. government-authorized effort to arm Libyan rebels.

It’s unclear if any of the weapons made it to Libya, and there’s no evidence linking weapons provided by the U.S. government to the Benghazi attacks.

“The proposal did not result in an actual transfer of defense articles to Libya,” the State Department official told POLITICO on Tuesday.

But questions about U.S. efforts to arm Libyan rebels have been mounting, since weapons have reportedly made their way from Libya to Syria, where a civil war is raging between the Syrian Government and ISIL-aligned fighters.

During 2013 Senate hearings on the 2012 Benghazi attack, Clinton, under questioning from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), said she had no knowledge of weapons moving from Libya into Turkey.

Wikileaks head Julian Assange in July suggested that he had emails proving that Clinton “pushed” the “flows” of weapons “going over to Syria.”

Additionally, Turi’s case had delved into emails sent to and from the controversial private account that Clinton used as Secretary of State, which the defense planned to harness at any trial.

At a court hearing in 2015, Cabou said emails between Clinton and her top aides indicated that efforts to arm the rebels were — at a minimum — under discussion at the highest levels of the government.

“We’re entitled to tell the jury, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the Secretary of State and her highest staff members were actively contemplating providing exactly the type of military assistance that Mr. Turi is here to answer for,” the defense attorney said, according to a transcript.

Turi’s defense was pressing for more documents about the alleged rebel-arming effort and for testimony from officials who worked on the issue the State Department and the CIA. The defense said it planned to argue that Turi believed he had official permission to work on arms transfers to Libya

“If we armed the rebels, as publicly reported in many, many sources and as we strongly believe happened and as we believe at least one witness told the grand jury, then documents about that process relate to that effort,” Cabou told Campbell at the same hearing last year.

*****  

McCarthy: The ‘side deals’ are further evidence of a highly politicized Obama Department of Justice. Just when you think it can’t get any worse . . . According to House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.), the immunity agreements struck by the Justice Department with Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, two top subjects of the FBI’s Clinton e-mail investigation, included “side agreements.” Pursuant to these side agreements, it was stipulated that (a) the FBI would not scrutinize any documents dated after January 31, 2015 (i.e., about five weeks before the most disturbing actions suggestive of obstruction of justice occurred); and (b) the FBI — in an investigation critically involving destruction of documents — would destroy the computers after conducting its search.
These revelations are outlined in a letter Chairman Goodlatte penned yesterday to Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Goodlatte says his committee learned of the side deals upon reviewing the immunity agreements, which have not been made public. That review naturally prompted a demand by the committee to see the side deals, which — for reasons unexplained — the Justice Department elected not to provide when it gave the committee access to the immunity agreements. The side deals have also not been made public. For anyone who worked in the Justice Department for any length of time, the striking of side deals with a defense lawyer (in this instance, Beth Wilkinson, who represents both Ms. Mills and Ms. Samuelson) is bracing. Written agreements with the Justice Department (regarding, for example, guilty pleas and cooperation) customarily include a clause explaining that the four corners of the document contain the entirety of the understandings between the parties. This is done precisely because defendants often claim they were enticed into signing the agreement because of this or that side deal purportedly agreed to by the government.
The Justice Department likes to be able to say, “We don’t engage in those sorts of shenanigans. The agreement is the single agreement as written.” Why did the Justice Department make side deals in this case (which we’ve been told was treated like any other case . . . except, alas, when it wasn’t)? More fundamentally, as I’ve been arguing since we learned of the immunity agreements, why did the government grant immunity in the first place? Unfortunately, the question, at this point, is rhetorical. Immunity was granted because the Justice Department would not use the grand jury against Mrs. Clinton.
As I’ve explained, the computers were physical evidence. The law empowers the government to compel production of physical evidence by subpoena (or by search warrant if there is suspicion that the evidence will be tampered with or destroyed). Importantly, however, the power to compel production of evidence derives from the grand jury. In the Clinton e-mails case, unlike virtually every other criminal case, the Justice Department apparently declined to convert the FBI’s investigation into a grand-jury investigation. This meant grand-jury subpoenas would not be issued. Why? Patently, the highly politicized Obama Justice Department did this because commencing a grand-jury investigation suggests that a matter is very serious and an indictment (which only the grand jury can issue) is likely. In this case, the Justice Department was determined to maintain the illusion that Clinton and her underlings hadn’t committed crimes, so the grand jury was avoided. That is how you end up with such inanities as the Justice Department’s leaking to the Washington Post that Cheryl Mills was regarded as nothing more than a very cooperative witness, not a suspect, even though we now know that (a) Mills falsely denied that, while serving as then-secretary of state Clinton’s chief of staff, she knew about the homebrew server system; (b) the evidence indicates that Mills is the one who directed Platte River Networks (PRN) to destroy the e-mails stored on Clinton’s server (although there are salient questions about when this happened); (c) the private laptop Mills used to vet Clinton’s e-mails contained mounds of classified information; and (d) Mills was sufficiently worried that her lawyer sought — and obtained — immunity from prosecution before Mills surrendered her computer to the FBI.
In his House testimony last week, FBI director James Comey tried to deflect the government’s failure to use the grand jury by rationalizing that the FBI was very anxious to examine the Mills and Samuelson computers, and that it is often more efficient in a criminal investigation to make informal agreements with the subjects’ lawyers than to rely on grand-jury compulsion. As I countered in this past weekend’s column, this claim is unconvincing. Use of the grand jury and negotiations with defense lawyers are not mutually exclusive. They happen concurrently all the time. Indeed, it is fear that the government might resort to compulsion that induces defense lawyers to negotiate reasonably. Take the grand jury off the table and investigators are apt to get taken to the cleaners. That is what happened here. With no resort to the grand jury, the FBI was reduced to relying on the Justice Department, which was working closely with Team Clinton’s defense lawyers, to cut immunity deals. These deals gave away the store in exchange for physical evidence the government actually had the power to demand without making concessions, much less extraordinary concessions like immunizing Mills and Samuelson from any prosecution based on the contents of the computers. According to Goodlatte, those concessions were even more astonishing than they seemed at first blush because of the newly revealed side deals.
First, there is the time-restriction. As noted above, Goodlatte says the Justice Department agreed that the FBI’s investigative team would not inspect any documents on the laptops dated later than January 31, 2015. What conceivable justification is there for this limitation? It is quite easy to conjure relevant evidence post-dating January 31, 2015, that could have been on the computer. Let’s just consider the crucial events of March 2015: In early March 2015, the New York Times broke the story about Mrs. Clinton’s homebrew server. The House Benghazi committee quickly issued a subpoena for Clinton’s e-mails. Between the Times report and March 25, Mills (and perhaps other Clinton-related lawyers and staffers) had a number of communications with Paul Combetta, the PRN technician who ultimately destroyed the e-mails. According to a March 25 e-mail, there was a call that day between Combetta and unidentified Clinton personnel as to which Combetta told the FBI “he could not recall the content of the call or the reference to backups in the e-mail.” (Scroll to Combetta FBI interview, May 3, 2016, p.5.) Nevertheless, sometime on or after March 25, Combetta had his “‘oh shit’ moment” and deleted the files containing Clinton’s e-mails from the server. (Same Combetta interview, pp.5-6.) On March 27, Clinton’s principal lawyer David Kendall informed Benghazi Committee chairman Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.) by letter: “I have confirmed with the Secretary’s IT support that no emails from [Clinton’s private e-mail address] for the time period [of Clinton’s 2009-2013 tenure as secretary of state] reside on the server or on any back-up systems associated with the server.” Kendall made no mention of when the “IT support” (Combetta) may have removed the e-mails.
A PRN work ticket dated March 31, 2015, references a conference call between Combetta, Kendall, and Mills, but when the FBI asked about it, Combetta refused to answer, citing his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. (Scroll to Combetta FBI interview, February 18, 2016, p.5.) On March 31, Combetta used the BleachBit program to “shred” any copies of Clinton e-mails remaining on the server. (May 3, 2016, Combetta interview, p.6). Combetta was obviously in contact with Mills and other Clinton team members from early February through the end of March 2015 — the period the FBI was barred from examining under the computer side deal. Combetta tells the highly unlikely story that, during this time frame, he destroyed Clinton’s e-mails on his own initiative, without any encouragement from Mills or others in the Clinton camp.
When asked during last week’s House hearing how he could believe Combetta, FBI director Comey pointedly replied that it was not a matter of believing Combetta; the problem was not having evidence that disproved Combetta’s story. So if the FBI was interested in finding such evidence, why would it agree (or at least abide the Justice Department’s agreement) to an arrangement under which it was denied the ability to review documents on Mills’s computer from March 2015, when Combetta, while in frequent communication with Mills, destroyed the e-mails? Finally (at least until the next shoe drops), why would the FBI agree to destroy the computers after conducting the (apparently highly limited) examination that was agreed to?
The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure explicitly provide (in Rule 41) that, when the government has taken custody of property for investigative purposes, a person who is somehow aggrieved by this deprivation may petition the court for the return of that property. The rule empowers the court to order the return of the property if it is not relevant to an ongoing investigation; and, if the court grants such relief, it “may impose reasonable conditions to protect access to the property and its use in later proceedings.” That is, the law encourages the preservation of materials that may have future investigative relevance. By simply following the law, the FBI and Justice Department can ensure that, if evidence is improperly destroyed, the government will not be at fault.
If Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson were bent on destroying potential evidence, that is a highly disturbing risk they should have been made to run on their own. No good could come from the FBI’s participating in the destruction. We are not talking here about illegal narcotics or explosives — items that could be dangerous to the public if needlessly preserved after their investigative relevance has been exhausted. We’re talking about laptop computers. Even if the FBI and Justice Department truly were convinced (against what appears to be the weight of the evidence) that there is no prosecutable case against anyone in the Clinton e-mail scandal, it is always possible that new information could emerge that would revive the case. Under such circumstances, the computers could have had renewed relevance and their destruction would have been highly problematic. How would it help the FBI to have had a hand in that?
Moreover, as the FBI and the Justice Department well knew, Clinton’s private e-mails are the subject of congressional oversight inquiries and Freedom of Information Act claims against the government that are being litigated in federal court. Again, why under those circumstances would the Justice Department and FBI agree not only that the evidence should be destroyed but, reportedly, that the FBI itself would do the destroying? We are repeatedly told that Mrs. Clinton and her underlings were not given special treatment, that this investigation was handled like any other. Are there other cases in which the Justice Department and FBI make such agreements?