Judge orders Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes to answer written Benghazi questions in Clinton email lawsuit By Samuel Chamberlain | Fox News Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, Ben Rhodes (Getty Images) A federal judge ruled Tuesday that former national security adviser Susan Rice and former deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes must answer written questions about the State Department's response to the deadly 2012 terror attack in Benghazi, Libya, as part of an ongoing legal battle over whether Hillary Clinton sought to deliberately evade public record laws by using a private email server while secretary of state. U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth denied a request by the conservative group Judicial Watch to make Rice and Rhodes sit for depositions, but agreed to have them answer written questions. He also agreed to Judicial Watch's request to depose the State Department about the preparation of talking points for Rice, then President Barack Obama's ambassador to the United Nations, ahead of appearances on political talk shows the Sunday following the attack. That deposition is part of Judicial Watch's inquiry into whether the State Department acted in bad faith by not telling a court for months that they had asked in mid-2014 for missing emails to be returned. CLINTON'S USE OF PRIVATE EMAIL SERVER AMONG 'GRAVEST' OFFENSES TO TRANSPARENCY, JUDGE SAYS Rice initially claimed on several talk shows that the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was triggered by protests over an anti-Islam video. The attack resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens. "Rice's talking points and State's understanding of the attack play an unavoidably central role in this case," Lamberth wrote in a 16-page order. Lamberth added that "State's role in the [talking] points' content and development could shed light on Clinton's motives for shielding her emails from [Freedom of Information Act] requesters or on State's reluctance to search her emails." Lamberth also allowed Judicial Watch to seek written answers from Bill Priestap, the former assistant director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division. Priestap, who supervised the bureau's investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server, retired from government service at the end of last year. “In a major victory for accountability, Judge Lamberth today authorized Judicial Watch to take discovery on whether the Clinton email system evaded FOIA and whether the Benghazi scandal was one reason for keeping Mrs. Clinton’s email secret,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Today, Judicial Watch issued document requests and other discovery to the State Department about the Clinton email scandal. Next up, we will begin questioning key witnesses under oath.” The judge's order amounts to approval of a discovery plan he ordered last month. In that ruling, Lamberth wrote that Clinton's use of a private email account was "one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency" and said the response of the State and Justice Departments "smacks of outrageous misconduct." As part of the discovery, Judicial Watch can depose Jacob Sullivan, Clinton's former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, and Justin Cooper, a longtime Bill Clinton aide who helped arrange the setup of Hillary Clinton's private email address and server. Judicial Watch said the discovery period will conclude within 120 days. A post-discovery hearing will then be held to determine whether additional witnesses, including Clinton and her former Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, may be deposed.
New details of 2016 meeting with Trump dossier author conflict with Dems’ timeline Catherine Herridge According to the transcript of Justice Department official Bruce Ohr's closed-door interview, Ohr was clear that he could not vouch for the credibility of the anti-Trump dossier; chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge reports. New details contained in congressional transcripts and emails about a July 2016 meeting involving the author of the anti-Trump “dossier,” Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, and his wife, Nellie, appear to conflict with claims from Democrats -- and the co-founder of the firm behind the dossier -- that significant contacts did not occur until after the election. According to the records, the little-known breakfast meeting was held on July 30, 2016 at Washington, D.C.’s Mayflower Hotel. Congressional transcripts, confirmed by Fox News, showed Nellie Ohr told House investigators last year that Christopher Steele, the British ex-spy who compiled the dossier, wanted to get word to the FBI at the time. “My understanding was that Chris Steele was hoping that Bruce (Ohr) could put in a word with the FBI to follow-up in some way,” Nellie Ohr testified in response to a Republican line of questioning, regarding the purpose of the meeting. Bruce Ohr did just that, almost immediately contacting then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and FBI lawyer Lisa Page. Asked by House investigators what they talked about at the breakfast meeting, Nellie Ohr said: “[Steele’s] suspicions that Russian Government figures were supporting the candidacy of Donald Trump.” The transcripts came from closed-door interviews conducted last year by the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees when they were under Republican control. The transcripts are undergoing an FBI and DOJ review and are not public. Nellie Ohr was of interest to investigators since she conducted opposition research on then-candidate Donald Trump for the firm Fusion GPS – the same company that commissioned the dossier. Her husband, meanwhile, is a senior official at the Justice Department who became a back channel between Steele and the FBI, after Steele was fired by the bureau on the eve of the 2016 presidential election over his contacts with the media. In her testimony, Nellie Ohr also said that pieces of the unverified dossier – which later would be used to secure a surveillance warrant for Trump campaign aide Carter Page – may have been shared during the meal. In response to a committee Democrat's line of questioning, Ohr stated, "At the breakfast, I – if I recall correctly, they may have shown pieces ..." of the document. Ohr said she never saw the entire body of opposition research, later dubbed the "dossier," until it was published by BuzzFeed in January 2017. Question: "Okay. And you hadn't seen it or its portions during the time that you were employed, correct?" Ohr: "I -- if I recall correctly, I may have seen a -- maybe a page or something of it at the breakfast." Email traffic, reviewed by Fox News, indicated that Steele broached the possibility of a meeting with Bruce Ohr as early as July 1, 2016. He emailed Ohr at the time: "I am seeing [redacted] in London next week to discuss ongoing business but there is something separate I wanted to discuss with you informally and separately. It concerns our favourite business tycoon!" Subsequent emails between Ohr and Steele also confirmed the July 30 meeting in Washington. Nellie Ohr’s testimony regarding Steele and the FBI would appear to align with her husband’s. Fox News recently reported that Bruce Ohr told House investigators as part of the Republican-led probe that shortly after the July 30, 2016 meeting, his “first move” was to reach out to senior FBI officials. Fox News recently confirmed the Bruce Ohr transcript said: “Andy McCabe, yes and met with him and Lisa Page and provided information to him. I subsequently met with Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, and eventually [an FBI agent]. And I also provided this information to people in the criminal division specifically Bruce Swartz, Zainab Ahmad, Andrew Weissmann.” (Strzok and Page left the bureau last year after their anti-Trump texts emerged. Swartz was a deputy assistant attorney general. Weissmann was chief of the DOJ Criminal Division’s Fraud Section before becoming a senior prosecutor on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team. Ahmad worked at the DOJ and is also now assigned to Mueller’s team.) However, congressional Democrats have asserted many of the contacts occurred later in the year. There appeared to be another discrepancy. The emails showed Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson was in contact with Ohr in August 2016. However, Simpson's November 2017 transcribed interview before the House Intelligence Committee showed him saying he worked through Bruce Ohr "sometime after Thanksgiving." Fox News recently asked the FBI, Justice Department and special counsel's office whether the meetings with Ohr over Steele and the dossier were consistent with -- or in conflict with -- existing DOJ or FBI rules, including chain-of-custody procedures for handling evidence. In addition, the special counsel's office was asked whether Weissmann and Ahmad had fully disclosed their contacts with Bruce Ohr and others over the dossier. The FBI and special counsel declined to comment; the DOJ did not immediately respond. An attorney for Nellie Ohr did not respond to a request for comment. An attorney for McCabe did not respond. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...ith-dems’-timeline/ar-BBSSu9T?ocid=spartanntp
and in real life, another trump buddy is being arraigned today. The list just keeps getting longer and longer. Your man child is going down maris. I don't need links as everyone is well aware of it.
Judicial Watch Sues for Records of Former FBI Counsel Baker’s Communications with Anti-Trump Dossier Author JANUARY 30, 2019 FOIA Lawsuit also Seeks Records of Communication Between Baker and Glenn Simpson, Nellie Ohr, and David Corn – Three Other Key Figures Tied to Dossier (Washington, DC) — Judicial Watch announced today that it has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice for all records of communication from January 2016 to January 2018 between former FBI General Counsel James Baker and anti-Trump dossier author Christopher Steele. Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking to compel the FBI to comply with a January 5, 2018, FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-00177). The lawsuit seeks: Any and all records of communication, including but not limited to emails, text messages and instant chats, sent between Baker and any of the following individuals: former British intelligence officer Steele, principal of Orbis Business Intelligence, Ltd.; Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS; former GPS contractor Nellie Ohr; and/or David Corn, a reporter with Mother Jones magazine. The FBI claimed it had no responsive records, but Baker was deeply involved with the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign and is currently the subject of a criminal investigation for leaking to the media. The FBI’s “no records” response is belied by Baker’s closed-door congressional testimony in October 2018, in which he reportedly testified that David Corn, a reporter at the far Left Mother Jones magazine, had provided him with a copy of the anti-Trump dossier the day after President Trump’s 2016 election victory. Baker also reportedly testified that he believed at the time Corn received the dossier from Simpson, the co-founder of Fusion GPS. Fusion GPS employee Nellie Ohr is the wife of former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, who was a key conduit between dossier author Christopher Steele and the FBI. Former FBI Director James Comey himself called the dossier “salacious and unverified.” Judicial Watch in August 2018 filed a related lawsuit seeking records about the Ohrs’ involvement in the anti-Trump dossier and the FBI’s meetings with the Democratic National Committee’s law firm Perkins Coie. In November Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit about the firm itself. Perkins Coie had hired Fusion GPS to dig into President Trump’s background. Baker reportedly told congressional investigators that Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann “initiated contact with [Baker] and provided documents and computer storage devices on Russian hacking.” The contact was made in late 2016 as federal investigators prepared a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page. In August 2018, Judicial Watch released FBI records showing that Steele was cut off as a “Confidential Human Source” after he disclosed his relationship to the FBI to a third party. The documents show at least 11 FBI payments to Steele in 2016. Baker also advised top FBI officials during the Hillary Clinton email scandal. He left his role as general counsel in January 2018 and resigned from the FBI in May 2018. “The real collusion scandal of the 2016 election is the effort by the Clinton campaign and the Obama DOJ/FBI to spy on and destroy President Donald Trump,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “And it looks like the FBI is covering up documents on this Russiagate scandal, which is why Judicial Watch is again in federal court.” https://www.judicialwatch.org/press...ommunications-with-anti-trump-dossier-author/
Graham calls McCabe comments 'beyond stunning' as he threatens to subpoena former FBI chief By Andrew O'Reilly | Fox News Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., vowed Sunday to investigate alleged discussions at the Department of Justice about invoking the 25th Amendment as a way to oust President Trump from office and threatened to subpoena former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe if he refused to testify on the matter before the Senate. "We're going to find out what happened here and the only way I know to find out is to call the people in under oath and find out, through questioning, who's telling the truth because the underlying accusation is beyond stunning," Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on CBS’ "Face the Nation." Graham added that he also plans to subpoena both McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein if they won’t voluntarily agree to testify before the committee. "There is no organization beyond scrutiny," Graham said. "There is no organization that can't withstand scrutiny. And the FBI will come out stronger." He said: "But we've got to get to the bottom of it. What are people to think after they watch "60 Minutes" when they hear this accusation by the acting deputy — acting FBI director that the deputy attorney general encouraged him to try to find ways to count votes to replace the president? That can't go unaddressed." Graham’s comments come on the heels of a Fox News story that reported that former FBI lawyer James Baker, in closed-door testimony to Congress, detailed alleged discussions among senior officials at the Justice Department about invoking the 25th Amendment. The testimony was delivered last fall to the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees. Fox News has confirmed portions of the transcript. It provides additional insight into discussions that have returned to the spotlight in Washington as fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe revisits the matter during interviews promoting his forthcoming book. Baker did not identify the two Cabinet officials. But in his testimony, the lawyer said McCabe and FBI lawyer Lisa Page came to him to relay their conversations with Rosenstein, including discussions of the 25th Amendment. “I was being told by some combination of Andy McCabe and Lisa Page, that, in a conversation with the deputy attorney general, he had stated that he -- this was what was related to me -- that he had at least two members of the president’s Cabinet who were ready to support, I guess you would call it, an action under the 25th Amendment,” Baker told the committees. Graham's comments on Sunday come after he floated the idea of a subpoena last week in a comment to Fox News about the Justice Department discussions. "I would like to know what happened," Graham told Fox News. "You're having a conversation about whether or not you're going to invoke the 25th Amendment. I imagine if the shoe were on the other foot, my Democratic colleagues would want to know about that conversation if it involved a Democrat." CBS News reported on McCabe’s comments after he told “60 Minutes” that Justice Department officials discussed the possibility of removing Trump via the 25th Amendment and that Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein had offered to wear a wire around the president. The 25th Amendment provides a mechanism for removing a sitting president from office. One way that could happen is if a majority of the president’s Cabinet says the president is incapable of discharging his duties. The Justice Department issued a statement calling McCabe’s comments “inaccurate and factually incorrect." Reports of the discussions of invoking the 25th Amendment and of Rosenstein wearing a wire were reported in The New York Times. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gr...-as-he-threatens-to-subpoena-former-fbi-chief
I think there needs to be a large percentage of the cabinet on board to do. I don't believe just a couple can execute the 25th.
Yes, it's the VP plus a majority of the cabinet. So two guys who aren't in the cabinet talking about the 25th is definitely not a coup (unless they are plotting to force the cabinet members to vote aye at gunpoint). Nor would it be a coup for the VP and the cabinet to actually invoke the 25th. A coup is an illegal overthrow of government. barfo
Judicial Watch Sues for ‘Coup’ Documents FEBRUARY 19, 2019 Judicial Watch https://www.judicialwatch.org/t/images/judicial_watch-logo_schema.jpg https://www.judicialwatch.org https://www.judicialwatch.org/t/images/judicial_watch-logo_schema.jpg Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Top DOJ Officials considered asking Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment in order to remove President Trump and discussed recording meetings with him (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for all records of communication of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the Office of the Attorney General Jeff Sessions, or the Office of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discussing the 25th Amendment or presidential fitness. Additionally, the lawsuit seeks all recordings made by any official in the Office of the Attorney General or Deputy Attorney General of meetings in the Executive Office of the President or Vice President. The suit was filed after the Justice Department failed to respond to three separate FOIA requests dated September 21, 2018 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-00388)). The lawsuit seeks all written and audio/visual records of any FBI/DOJ discussions regarding the 25th Amendment and plans to secretly record President Trump in the Oval Office. On February 14, 2019, former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe stated in an interview with CBS that “there were conversations about the possibility of removing Trump under the 25th Amendment and confirming that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had offered to wear a wire around the president.” After President Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey, reportedly top DOJ officials discussed whether to recruit cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office. President Trump recently tweeted: “The biggest abuse of power and corruption scandal in our history, and it’s much worse than we thought. Andrew McCabe (FBI) admitted to plotting a coup (government overthrow) when he was serving in the FBI, before he was fired for lying & leaking.” It was reported in September 2018 that Deputy Attorney General, Rod J. Rosenstein, suggested that he secretly record President Trump in the White House in an effort to invoke the 25th Amendment and have President Trump removed. Judicial Watch’s immediate follow-up FOIA requests were ignored. “It is no surprise that we are facing an immense cover-up of senior FBI and DOJ leadership discussions to pursue a seditious coup against President Trump,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This effort to overthrow President Trump is a fundamental threat to our constitutional republic so Judicial Watch will do everything it can in the courts to expose everything possible about this lawlessness.” ###
If America was a socialist state all these Deep State losers would be dead in a ditch just about 2 years ago.
That explains it. I was in Sweden recently and there were dozens of bureaucrat corpses alongside the roads. barfo
This from Wikipedia: "Founded in 1994, JW has primarily targeted Democrats, in particular the Clinton administration, the Obama administration, and Hillary Clinton, although it has sued Republicans as well including the administration of George W. Bush. It has also filed lawsuits against government climate scientists; Judicial Watch has described climate science as "fraud science". The group has made numerous false and unsubstantiated claims, which have been picked up by right-wing news outlets. The vast majority of its lawsuits have been dismissed." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Watch
