Category Archives: Hillary Clinton email

Hillary Emails Recovered by FBI to be Released

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Earlier this year, top officials at the Justice Department and FBI began formulating a rough plan for how the findings in the unusual Clinton probe would be announced, officials close to the matter said.The idea that some top officials supported was that the FBI and the Justice Department, which have jointly managed the probe, would announce their decision together and at the same time announce how they came to it. This would prevent the spectacle of the FBI concluding its investigation then handing over recommendations to the Justice Department for review, with a final decision to be announced by Lynch.

But as the investigation drew to a close in the late spring, Comey began having other thoughts.
The political furor of the investigation was reaching a fever pitch.
FBI officials and Clinton’s lawyers began discussing plans for her interview and possible dates when she could come by FBI headquarters, preferably without a mob of reporters following her. There were some internal disputes about timing, with some at the FBI believing the interview could have happened weeks ago and Justice lawyers pushing to wait for more investigative work to be completed.
And last week, just when the political atmosphere surrounding the FBI investigation couldn’t seem more charged, things took a new bizarre turn. Former President Bill Clinton charged uninvited onto Lynch’s plane parked on the tarmac at the Phoenix airport. Lynch and the former president said they discussed nothing related to the probe and kept the visit to social matters. More on all the pre-planning and political planning is here from CNN.
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Senator Cornyn introduces, S.3135, the Taking Responsibility Using Secured Technologies (TRUST) Act of 2016, would put Congress on record saying that Clinton should have no access to classified information “until she earns the legal right to such access.”
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Speaker Ryan sent a letter to ODNI Director James Clapper requesting suspension of classified information and briefings to Hillary Clinton but the Clapper denied the request.

State Dept. to release deleted Clinton emails uncovered by FBI

You can bet these emails wont be released until after the November election, right?

WashingtonExaminer: State Department officials plan to publish all work-related emails discovered on Hillary Clinton’s private servers by the FBI once agents turn over the records Clinton withheld from the government.

“Just as we processed the material turned over to the department by former Secretary Clinton, we will appropriately and with due diligence process any additional material that we receive from the FBI to identify work-related records and make them available to the public,” agency spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday.

Clinton had previously stated her legal team provided everything that could possibly considered related to her State Department work to the agency in late 2014.

However, the year-long FBI investigation into her treatment of classified material discovered “several thousand” work-related records on the servers agents took into custody last year.

Clinton has yet to address the contradiction in her statement and the findings of the FBI.

Kirby did not provide a timeline of when the newly-uncovered emails would be available to the public.

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While much attention has been given to the meeting between Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton on her private plane, there are symptoms the decision was made long before to close the case and not prosecute Hillary Clinton for violations of the Espionage Act. When Hillary made the ‘gesture’ to meet with the FBI for 3.5 hours on a Saturday morning, nothing was gained such that the FBI did not take her responses with any seriousness to continue with the investigation. So…..what is the chatter at the water coolers at the FBI?

Source: FBI Agents Believe An ‘Inside Deal’ Protected Hillary Clinton

“FBI agents believe there was an inside deal put in place after the Loretta Lynch/Bill Clinton tarmac meeting.”

Was the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information cooked from the very beginning? According to the New York Post, FBI agents investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecured, private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State were required to sign unprecedented non-disclosure agreements prohibiting them from disclosing anything about their investigation of Hillary.

A former FBI chief told the New York Post that such a requirement is “very, very unusual.”

While FBI agents are typically required to sign vanilla non-disclosure agreements as part of their security clearances, law enforcement sources say they’ve never heard of a “Case Briefing Acknowledgment,” the agreement agents investigating Clinton were reportedly required to sign.

“FBI agents believe there was an inside deal put in place after the Loretta Lynch/Bill Clinton tarmac meeting,” a source told the Post.

Last week, FBI Director James Comey said that despite Clinton being “extremely careless” with classified information, the agency would recommend the presumptive Democratic nominee not face any criminal charges. Following his comments, the U.S. Department of Justice formally closed the Clinton email case.

A week before the DOJ closed the case, Attorney General Loretta Lynch privately met with Bill Clinton aboard a private jet on the tarmac of an airport in Phoenix — raising serious concerns about the integrity of the investigation.

Hillary Clinton is reportedly planning to keep Lynch on as AG if she wins in November, according to The New York Times.

During a congressional hearing last week, Comey told the House Oversight Committee the FBI had no transcript or recording of its July 4 weekend interview with Hillary Clinton, nor was she required to swear an oath promising to tell the truth.

Guccifer 2.0 Releases New DNC Database Docs

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Guccifer 2.0 releases new DNC docs

TheHill: Guccifer 2.0, the hacker who breached the Democratic National Committee, has released a cache of purported DNC documents to The Hill in an effort to refocus attention on the hack.

The documents include more than 11,000 names matched with some identifying information, files related to two controversial donors and a research file on Sarah Palin.

“The press [is] gradually forget[ing] about me, [W]ikileaks is playing for time and [I] have some more docs,” he said in electronic chat explaining his rationale.

The documents provide some insight into how the DNC handled high-profile donation scandals. But the choice of documents revealed to The Hill also provides insight into the enigmatic Guccifer 2.0.

 

Related reading: Infamous Clinton Fundraiser Pleads Guilty to Ponzi Scheme

Related reading: Former Political Fundraiser Norman Hsu Sentenced to 292 Months in Prison for Ponzi Scheme and Related Campaign Finance Crimes 

The hacker provided a series of spreadsheets related to Norman Hsu, a Democratic donor jailed in 2009 for running a Ponzi scheme and arranging illegal campaign contributions.  The DNC responded by assembling files to gauge the exposure from Hsu to its slate of candidates.
Related reading: Ex-PMA lobbyist pleads guilty

Related reading: Guccifer 2.o Blog Hat tip
Similar files on Paul J. Magliocchetti, a lobbyist closely associated with former Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), provide a quick reference document outlining Magliocchetti’s donations to Republicans. Magliocchetti pleaded guilty in 2010 to involvement in a pay-for-play campaign finance scheme.

Guccifer 2.0 has claimed to be a Romanian hacker with no strong political leanings. Guccifer 2.0’s choice to release documents from Magliocchetti and Hsu, whose cases are now six and seven years old, shows a detailed knowledge of American politics seemingly at odds with the backstory provided by the hacker.

Experts have questioned whether Guccifer 2.0 is Romanian or even a single person. Tools used in the attack were matched to Russian intelligence agencies and, when tested, Guccifer 2.0 has struggled to speak in Romanian.

A popular theory explaining the attack is that the DNC hack is a Russian attempt to embarrass the DNC and influence the election. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has speculated that the hack was actually a false flag operation performed by the DNC to cast aspersions on his campaign.

Guccifer 2.0 was an unknown quantity until after the DNC announced it had been breached. He has since leaked a variety of documents, including counter-Trump strategies and donor databases.

The Guccifer 2.0 name, the hacker has said, is an homage to Marcel Lazăr Lehel, who called himself Guccifer. Lehel broke into the email accounts of former President George W. Bush’s aides and family, Clinton family confidant Sidney Blumenthal and “Sex in the City” author Candace Bushnell. Lehel, now imprisoned, recently claimed he had also hacked Hillary Clinton’s private email server. FBI Director James Comey later testified before Congress that Lehel later admitted he lied when he said he hacked the former secretary of State’s server.

The files provided by Guccifer 2.0 to The Hill includes a folder with a list of objectionable quotes from Palin and an archive of the former Alaska governor’s Twitter account assembled in 2011 — before Palin decided against running for president.

Other documents contain internal fundraising goals for different donors and bundlers in 2005 and a 10,000-name email database that, based on the prevalence of Hotmail accounts and lack of Gmail references, appears to be from around the same time. Separate files contain as many as 1,500 names pared with contact information from 2005 and 2006 fundraising events.

“Our experts are confident in their assessment that the Russian government hackers were the actors responsible for the breach detected in April, and we believe that the subsequent release and the claims around it may be a part of a disinformation campaign by the Russians,” a senior DNC official said in a written statement.

 

But John Kerry, Iran Does Support al Qaeda

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Primer:

The State Department confirmed that Iran continues to work with Al-Qaeda elements, despite
their expressed hostility towards one another. It stated: “Iran remained unwilling to bring to
justice senior Al-Qaeda (AQ) members it continued to detain, and refused to publicly identify
those senior members in its custody.
Iran allowed AQ facilitators Muhsin al-Fadhli and Adel Radi Saq al-Wahabi al-Harbi to operate a
core facilitation pipeline through Iran, enabling AQ to move funds and fighters to South Asia and
also to Syria.

Al-Fadhli is a veteran AQ operative who has been active for years. Al-Fadhli began working with the Iran-based AQ facilitation network in 2009 and was later arrested by Iranian authorities. He was released in 2011 and assumed leadership of the Iran-based AQ facilitation network.” Clarion Project

Related reading: Al Qaeda’s Global Reach – State Dept Foreign Terror Org. List

Related reading: Usama bin Ladin’s sons thought to be in Iran

Related reading: Osama bin Laden’s Son Threatens Revenge Against U.S. For Father’s Assassination

Top Intel Official: Al Qaeda Worked on WMD in Iran

New evidence of the bin Laden-Iran connection.

WeeklyStandard: Al Qaeda operatives based in Iran worked on  and biological weapons, according to a letter written to Osama bin Laden that is described in a new book by a top former U.S. intelligence official.

The letter was captured by a U.S. military sensitive site exploitation team during the raid on bin Laden’s Abbottabad headquarters in May 2011. It is described in Field of Fight, out Tuesday from Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Michael Ledeen of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“One letter to bin Laden reveals that al Qaeda was working on chemical and biological weapons in Iran,” Flynn writes.

Flynn’s claim, if true, significantly advances what we know about al Qaeda’s activity in Iran. The book was cleared by the intelligence community’s classification review process. And U.S. intelligence sources familiar with the bin Laden documents tell us the disclosure on al Qaeda’s WMD work is accurate.

Flynn notes that only a small subset of bin Laden’s files have been released to the public. The “Defense Intelligence Agency’s numerous summaries and analyses of the files remain classified,” too, Flynn writes. “But even the public peek gives us considerable insight into the capabilities of this very dangerous global organization.”

It’s not just al Qaeda.

  

“There’s a lot of information on Iran in the files and computer discs captured at the Pakistan hideout of Osama bin Laden,” Flynn writes in the introduction. The authors note that the relationship between Iran and al Qaeda “has always been strained” and “[s]ometimes bin Laden himself would erupt angrily at the Iranians.” Previously released documents and other evidence show that al Qaeda kidnapped an Iranian diplomat in order to force a hostage exchange and bin Laden was very concerned about the Iranians’ ability to track his family members.

And yet the book makes clear that Flynn believes there is much more to the al Qaeda-Iran relationship than the public has been told. And that’s not an accident. Obama administration “censors have been busy,” Flynn writes, blocking the release of the bin Laden documents to the public and, in some cases, to analysts inside the U.S. intelligence community. “Some of it—a tiny fraction—has been declassified and released, but the bulk of it is still under official seal. Those of us who have read bin Laden’s material know how important it is…”

Not surprisingly, Obama administration officials bristle at Flynn’s characterization of their lack of transparency and lack of urgency on jihadists and their state sponsors. “Mike Flynn, in true Kremlin form, has been peddling these baseless conspiracy theories for years. Anyone who thinks Iran was or is in bed with al Qaeda doesn’t know much about either,” an Obama administration official told THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

It’s an odd line of attack, given the fact that the Obama administration has repeatedly accused Iran of directly aiding al Qaeda. The Treasury and State Departments publicly accused the Iranian regime of allowing al Qaeda to operate inside Iran in: July 2011, December 2011, February 2012,July 2012, October 2012, May 2013, January 2014, February 2014, April 2014, and August 2014. In addition, in congressional testimony in February 2012, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper described the relationship as a “marriage of convenience.”

Asked about the administration’s own repeated statements pointing to the Iranian regime’s deal with al Qaeda, the administration official who dismissed Flynn’s claim as a “baseless conspiracy” theory declined to comment further.

The Flynn/Ledeen claim about al Qaeda’s WMD work in Iran comes with an interesting wrinkle. The authors preface their disclosure of al Qaeda’s work on “chemical and biological weapons in Iran” by suggesting that the revelation was included in documents already public.

But the only document released to date that seems to touch on the subject is a March 28, 2007, letter to an al Qaeda operative known as “Hafiz Sultan.” The letter, which discussed the possibility of Iran-based al Qaeda operatives using chlorine gas on Kurdish leaders and includes a likely reference to Atiyah ‘Abd-al-Rahman, was released by the administration via the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point in May 2012. President Obama’s Treasury Department has claimed that Rahman was appointed by Osama bin Laden “to serve as al Qaeda’s emissary in Iran, a position which allowed him to travel in and out of Iran with the permission of Iranian officials.” It is not, however, addressed to bin Laden and it does not include a reference to biological weapons.

And while the U.S. Treasury and State Department have repeatedly sanctioned al Qaeda’s operatives inside Iran and offered rewards for information on their activities, as noted, statements from Treasury and the State Department do not mention al Qaeda’s “chemical and biological weapons” work inside Iran.

The takeaway: It does not appear that the al Qaeda document referenced by Flynn has been released by the U.S. government.

Flynn and others who have seen the documents say there are more explosive revelations in the bin Laden files kept from the public. Those already released give us a hint. One document, released in 2015, is a letter presumably written by Osama bin Laden to the “Honorable brother Karim.” The recipient of the October 18, 2007, missive, “Karim,” was likely an al Qaeda veteran known Abu Ayyub al Masri, who led al Qaeda in the Iraq (AQI) at the time.

Bin Laden chastised the AQI leader for threatening to attack Iran. The al Qaeda master offered a number of reasons why this didn’t make sense. “You did not consult with us on that serious issue that affects the general welfare of all of us,” bin Laden wrote. “We expected you would consult with us for these important matters, for as you are aware, Iran is our main artery for funds, personnel, and communication, as well as the matter of hostages.”

That language from bin Laden sounds a lot like the language the Obama administration used in July 2011, when a statement from the U.S. Treasury noted that the network in Iran “serves as the core pipeline through which Al Qaeda moves money, facilitators and operatives from across the Middle East to South Asia.”

David Cohen, who was then a top Treasury official and is now the number two official at the CIA, told us back then: “There is an agreement between the Iranian government and al Qaeda to allow this network to operate. There’s no dispute in the intelligence community on this.”

Why, then, is the Obama administration attempting to dismiss the cooperative relationship between Iran and al Qaeda as a “baseless conspiracy?” Good question.

And it’s one that releasing the rest of the documents could help answer.

Note: Flynn’s co-author Michael Ledeen is a colleague of Thomas Joscelyn at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

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Most recently, in September, the Obama administration launched missile strikes against al Qaeda’s so-called Khorasan Group in Syria. The administration pointed to  indicating that this cadre of “core” al Qaeda operatives was planning mass killings in the West, and possibly even in the United States. Two of the terrorists who lead the Khorasan Group formerly headed al Qaeda’s operations in Iran. Tellingly, Iran allowed this pair to continue their fight against the West, even as they have battled Iran’s chief allies in Syria.

Obama’s Treasury Department first publicly recognized the relationship between the Iranian regime and al Qaeda on July 28, 2011. Treasury added six al Qaeda operatives to the U.S. government’s list of designated terrorists. The principal terrorist among them is known as Yasin al-Suri, “a prominent Iran-based al Qaeda facilitator” who operates “under an agreement between al Qaeda and the Iranian government.” Treasury described al Qaeda’s presence in Iran as a “core pipeline” and “a critical transit point for funding to support al Qaeda’s activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” Treasury made it clear that other high-level al Qaeda members were actively involved in shuttling cash and recruits across Iran.

Yikes, FBI Director Comey’s Connections

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In 1996, Comey acted as deputy special counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee.

 

HSBC Holdings Plc. and HSBC Bank USA N.A. Admit to Anti-Money Laundering and Sanctions Violations, Forfeit $1.256 Billion in Deferred Prosecution Agreement
Bank Agrees to Enhanced Compliance Obligations, Oversight by Monitorin Connection with Five-year Agreement

Comey was appointed to the board of directors of the London-based financial institution HSBC Holdings, to improve the company’s compliance program after its $1.9 billion settlement with the Justice Department for failing to comply with basic due diligence requirements for money laundering regarding Mexican drug cartels and terrorism financing. Banks too big to fail? Summary is here from Bloomberg.

James Brien Comey, Jr. (52), former United States Deputy Attorney General, has been appointed a Director of HSBC Holdings plc with effect from 4 March 2013. He will be an independent non-executive Director and a member of the Financial System Vulnerabilities Committee.

CPC Green Initiative

… million has been committed to NELP from CPC, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. In 2009, Deutsche … City of New York Pratt Institute HSBC Holdings Amalgamated Bank …

Scaling Rainwater Harvesting for 21st Century Mexico

… to install rainwater harvesting systems. With funding from HSBC, Isla Urbana is developing and testing different implementation strategies … Without Borders Temo Foundation HSBC Philanthropic Programs …

Building the Corporate Coalition

… and government leaders that includes the leaders of BP and HSBC (the world’s second largest bank). Its core coalition quickly grew to … BSkyB, British Telecom, Catalyst, Cheyne Capital Management, HSBC Holdings Plc, Interface, Johnson & Johnson, Munich Re Group, Starbucks, …

Report: Holder Blocked HSBC Trial On Drug Cartel Money Laundering Scandal

Clinton foundation received up to $81m from clients of controversial HSBC bank

  • Leaked files reveal identities of wealthy donors with accounts in Geneva
  • Donors gave as much as $81m to Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation
  • Hillary Clinton expected to make inequality a key issue of any 2016 campaign

The charitable foundation run by Hillary Clinton and her family has received as much as $81m from wealthy international donors who were clients of HSBC’s controversial Swiss bank.

Leaked files from HSBC’s Swiss banking division reveal the identities of seven donors to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation with accounts in Geneva.

They include Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining magnate and one of the foundation’s biggest financial backers, and Richard Caring, the British retail magnate who, the bank’s internal records show, used his tax-free Geneva account to transfer $1m into the New York-based foundation.

Hillary Clinton has expressed concern over growing economic inequality in the US and is expected to make the issue a cornerstone of her widely anticipated presidential campaign in 2016. However, political observers are increasingly asking whether the former secretary of state’s focus on wealth inequality sits uncomfortably with the close relationships she and her husband have nurtured with some of the world’s richest individuals.

Giustra’s Swiss HSBC account, created in 2002, contained up to $10m in the 2006-2007 period. Lawyers for the mining magnate said that he held the account for investment purposes, and that it was in compliance with Canadian laws that required disclosure of foreign assets. More from Guardian

U.S. Ambassador says he’s sorry but Poles want apology from FBI chief over offensive Holocaust remarks, DailyMail

  • FBI director James Comey suggested in remarks last week that Poles were accomplices during the holocaust
  • Comey’s comments are offensive to Poles as they had no role in running death camps and were themselves victims of the Third Reich
  • Poles see themselves as heroes of the war who have never been properly recognized, making the comments yet more hurtful
  • The remarks came shortly before the 72nd anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which was commemorated on Sunday 
  • The U.S. ambassador to Poland, Stephen Mull, was called to the Foreign Ministry in a formal act of protest
  • The incident echoes a gaffe by President Obama in 2012 when he referred to ‘a Polish death camp’ – he offered his regrets for the error 

State Dept Purged the Emails, Anti Israel

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State Department Purged Emails About Secret Anti-Netanyahu Campaign

Key emails deleted despite requirement to archive

FreeBeacon: A State Department official deleted emails that included information about a secret campaign to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the country’s last election, according to a Senate investigatory committee that determined the Obama administration transferred tax funds to anti-Netanyahu groups.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations disclosed in a massive report on Tuesday that the Obama administration provided U.S. taxpayer dollars to the OneVoice Movement, a liberal group that waged a clandestine campaign to smear and oust Netanyahu from office.

OneVoice, which was awarded $465,000 in U.S. grants through 2014, has been under congressional investigation since 2015, when it was first accused of funneling money to partisan political groups looking to unseat Netanyahu. This type of behavior by non-profit groups is prohibited under U.S. tax law.

The investigation determined that OneVoice redirected State Department funds to anti-Netanyahu efforts and that U.S. officials subsequently erased emails containing information about the administration’s relationship with the non-profit group.

Related reading: March 2015/ Netanyahu Prevailed Against EU/USA Anti-Semitism

The disclosure comes amid a massive effort by Congress to reform the State Department’s email practices in light of former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential frontrunner’s Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified materials.

The Washington Free Beacon revealed early Tuesday that new legislation would ban all State Department officials from using private email accounts and servers, as well as mandate annual reports about the leak of classified information.

A senior State Department official admitted to congressional investigators that he deleted several emails pertaining to the administration’s coordination with OneVoice.

“The State Department was unable to produce all documents responsive to the Subcommittee’s requests due to its failure to retain complete email records of Michael Ratney, who served as U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem during the award and oversight of the OneVoice grants,” the report states.

Related reading: Jeremy Bird in Violation of the Logan Act?

Investigators “discovered this retention problem because one important email exchange between OneVoice and Mr. Ratney … was produced to the Subcommittee only by OneVoice,” the report continues. “After conducting additional searches, the Department informed the Subcommittee that it was unable to locate any responsive emails from Mr. Ratney’s inbox or sent mail.”

Ratney was ultimately forced to tell investigators that “[a]t times I deleted emails with attachments I didn’t need in order to maintain my inbox under the storage limit.”

While Ratney had the option to archive emails—as required by the department—he did not do this. Ratney claimed he was not aware of the rule, stating he “did not know [he] was required to archive routine emails.”

The deletion of the email chains appears to be a violation of the Federal Records Act, which mandates official records be archived for future disclosure purposes.

One source with intimate knowledge of the situation told the Free Beacon that the deletion of these emails is highly suspicious given the seriousness of the claims about the administration’s behavior.

Related reading: Obama’s War on Israel

“The Obama administration had the money, skills, and personnel to build a gigantic campaign infrastructure that was used to try to defeat the prime minister of an ally,” the source said. “But apparently they didn’t have what they needed to store the emails in which they did all of those things. That’s certainly a lucky break for the State Department.”

State Department officials did not immediately respond to a request for further information about the investigation and the deletion of emails.

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Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) each signed off on the investigation, which was conducted by Portman’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In releasing the report, Portman criticized the State Department for lax oversight and for undermining a U.S. ally.

“The State Department ignored warning signs and funded a politically active group in a politically sensitive environment with inadequate safeguards,” Portman said. “It is completely unacceptable that U.S. taxpayer dollars were used to build a political campaign infrastructure that was deployed — immediately after the grant ended — against the leader of our closest ally in the Middle East.”

The investigation is notable for its bipartisan sheen. McCaskill highlighted the conclusion that it showed “no wrongdoing” by President Barack Obama’s administration but said the report “certainly highlights deficiencies in the Department’s policies that should be addressed in order to best protect taxpayer dollars.” Read more from Politico