Senate Judiciary Hearing: IG Michael Horowitz and FBI Director Chris Wray – 2:00pm Livestream and Discussion Thread…

The Senate Judiciary Committee, Chairman Chuck Grassley presiding, is scheduled to hear testimony today from DOJ-OIG Michael Horowitz and FBI Director Christopher Wray about the findings of the IG report of FBI conduct during the Clinton email investigation.  The hearing time is 2:00pm Eastern.
Livestream LinkAlternate Livestream LinkAlternate 2 Livestream Link


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This is the first time IG Horowitz will field questions since releasing his report last Thursday. Unfortunately, most of the members of this committee are benefactors of the DC Swamp, and less likely to confront Horowitz and/or Wray with tough and specific questions. It is likely that only Chairman Grassley has actually read the 568-page report.
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Jeff Sessions and Christopher Wray Suffering From Severe Battered Institutional Syndrome…

For about eight months columnist Andrew McCarthy appeared on television and wrote dozens of articles about the slow-drip of information stemming from the Trump-Russia probe and the IG Horowitz investigation.  Almost all of the articles were sympathetic to the institutions being challenged. However, in mid-May a funny thing happened.
The weekend before May 15th McCarthy actually broke down and read the six-month-old Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text messages he had been delivering opinion on; and guess what happened?  Yup, his perspective changed within a period of 36-hours, and with it – a radical shift in tone and delivery.  In essence, he red-pilled himself.
What does that have to do with FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Jeff Sessions?  Please bear with me.

When Christopher Wray appeared before the media three hours after the IG report, one thing was stunningly obvious: he never read the report.  Wray might have been briefed on a summary of the report, but there was no way Director Wray actually read the documented substance, the details and the facts, within the center of the report.
As a direct consequence Chris Wray looked and sounded like Baghdad Bob standing in front of the cameras.  “There are no Americans bombing Baghdad”, as the explosions are seen over his shoulders, was akin to “there’s no structural or institutional bias” as nom de plume FBI agents madly wave “F**k Trump” banners in the background.
It was an absurd display of a disconnect from the institution he is leading.
If you only read the executive summary of the IG report, you might not see how ridiculously absurd Director Wray’s presentation was.  In the old school corporate world we used to have a saying: “never allow your leadership to be compromised“; obviously those who briefed Wray had no issue watching him make a professional ass out of himself. Then again, perhaps that was the intention.
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FBI Agent Peter Strzok Welcomes Opportunity To Testify To Congress Will Not Plead the Fifth…

A letter from FBI Agent Peter Strzok’s attorney (presented below)  outlines his client’s joyful willingness to testify before any congressional committee that invites him, and welcomes the opportunity to clear his name.  According to the Washington Post:

(Via WaPo) Peter Strzok, who was singled out in a recent Justice Department inspector general report for the politically charged messages, would be willing to testify without immunity, and he would not invoke his Fifth Amendment rights in response to any question, his attorney, Aitan Goelman, said in an interview Sunday. Strzok has become a special target of President Trump, who has used the texts to question the Russia investigation.

Goelman said Strzok “wants the chance to clear his name and tell his story.”

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Sunday Talks: Representative John Ratcliffe Discusses IG Report – Preparations Underway For Potomac Two-Step Monday…

Inspector General Michael Horowitz and FBI Director Christopher Wray will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow at 2pm. Thus begins the Potomac Two-Step; a generally well known DC approach to protect the interests of the swamp.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley might ask some pointed questions; however, other than re-election ‘talking point’ campaign questioning by Senator Ted Cruz, expect little in the way of actual accountability with this crew.  A person only needs to look at the names on the Senate Judiciary Committee to predict the insufferable obfuscation.

Senators: Orrin Hatch, Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee, John Cornyn, Ben Sasse, Jeff Flake, Mike Crappo, Thom Tillis, John Kennedy, Kamala Harris, Corey Booker, Richard Blumenthal, Chris Coons, Amy Klobuchar, Sheldon Whitehouse, Dick Durban and Dianne Feinstein…. resist we much, and we must, we much, about that, be committed.

It is the Tuesday joint-house hearings, when the actual questions *might* be raised:

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Sunday Talks: Maria Bartiromo Interviews Devin Nunes on IG Report and FBI/DOJ Misconduct….

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the particulars of the IG report and the upcoming week.

Bartiromo is one of the few pundits who has actually absorbed the entire landscape of the back-story, read the actual reports and invested her time into the details.  As such Ms. Bartiromo is able to take a comprehensive understanding forward into her interviews:

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When we see that justice is measured, not by due process, but by compulsion; when we see that in order to invoke our fourth or sixth amendment right to privacy and due process, we need to obtain permission from men who rebuke the constitution; when we see that justice is determined by those who leverage, not in law, but in politics; when we see that men get power over individual liberty by graft and by scheme, and our representatives don’t protect us against them, but protect them against us; when we see corruption holding influence and individual liberty so easily dispatched and nullified; we may well know that our freedom is soon to perish.

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Sunday Talks: Chairman Trey Gowdy Discusses IG Report and Friday Night Meeting With FBI and DOJ Leadership…

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy discusses the recently released Inspector General report on FBI and DOJ conduct in the run-up to the 2016 election and the exoneration of Hillary Clinton.

Additionally, Chairman Gowdy discusses the meeting held last Friday night with FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein. In the meeting Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, along with a group of house chairmen (Gowdy, Nunes, Goodlatte), told the FBI and DOJ the House of Representatives will move forward with “floor action” to enforce compliance.

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IG Report: Peter Strzok Statements About Weiner/Abedin Laptop Conflict With FBI Claims About Weiner/Abedin Laptop…

General David Petraeus was arrested for leaving his classified schedule on mistress Paula Broadwell’s nightstand.  Kristian Saucier was arrested for taking a classified photograph on a submarine.  Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin had dozens of classified Clinton emails on a laptop and…

There is a great deal of inconsistent application of law surrounding classified information. There is also a great deal of fatigue surrounding discussion of those inconsistent applications.  Contradictions, inconsistency and obtuse justifications are as rampant in our midst as the political narratives shaping them.  Perhaps that’s by design.

We begin reading Chapter 11 of the IG Report with a growing acceptance that not only is there a need for a special counsel, but there is a brutally obvious need for multiple special counsels; each given a specific carve-out investigation that comes directly from the content of the Inspector General report.   This issue of the handling of the Weiner/Abedin laptop screams for a special counsel investigation on that facet alone.  Why?

Well, consider this from page #388 (emphasis mine):

Midyear agents obtained a copy of the Weiner laptop from NYO immediately after the search warrant was signed on October 30.

The laptop was taken directly to Quantico where the FBI’s Operational Technology Division (OTD) began processing the laptop. The Lead Analyst told us that given the volume of emails on the laptop and the difficulty with de-duplicating the emails that “at least for the first few days, the scale of what we’re doing seem[ed] really, really big.”

Strzok told us that OTD was able “to do some amazing things” to “rapidly de-duplicate” the emails on the laptop, which significantly lowered the number of emails that the Midyear team would have to individually review. Strzok stated that only after that technological breakthrough did he begin to think it was “possible we might wrap up before the election.”  (pg 388)

The key takeaway here is two-fold.  First, the laptop is in the custody of the FBI; that’s important moving forward (I’ll explain later).  Also, specifically important, FBI Agent Peter Strzok, the lead investigative authority in the Hillary Clinton MYE (Mid-Year-Exam), is explaining to the IG how they were able to process an exhaustive volume of emails (350,000) and Blackberry communications (344,000) in a few days; [Oct 30 to Nov 5]

Note: “OTD was able “to do some amazing things to rapidly de-duplicate” the emails on the laptop.

OK, you got that?

Now lets look at the very next page, #389 (again, emphasis mine):

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Representative Jim Jordan Discusses IG Report…

Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) appears on Fox News to discuss the IG report and the upcoming appearance of Michael Horowitz to the Judiciary and Oversight committee coming this Tuesday June 19th.

On Monday June 18th both Horowitz and FBI Director Chris Wray will be appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee (Chairman Grassley).  Then on Tuesday Horowitz will appear before the House Joint Judiciary/Oversight Committee.

We need Jim Jordan to ask some basic questions [SEE HERE] and gain clarity from Horowitz.  Tuesday is likely the best hope for answers because we have Jim Jordan, John Ratcliffe, Ron DeSantis, Louie Gohmert, Andy Biggs, Matt Gaetz, Steve King, possibly Mark Meadows and Chairman Goodlatte asking the questions:

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IG Report: FBI Agent Peter Strzok Sent Weiner Sealed Indictment To His Personal Email…

One of the interesting aspects of the IG report is the documented use of personal email by participants within the FBI “small group” Mid-Year-Exam (MYE) team. [pg 424]

One of those documented examples involves FBI Agent Peter Strzok downloading the content of the sealed Anthony Weiner Indictment, October 29, 2016, to his personal email address. Unauthorized extraction of a ‘sealed SDNY indictment‘, and transmission to a non-secure system, is a felony.

(From summary pg vii) We found that Strzok used his personal email accounts for official government business on several occasions, including forwarding an email from his FBI account to his personal email account about the proposed search warrant the Midyear team was seeking on the Weiner laptop.

==> This email included a draft of the search warrant affidavit, which contained information from the Weiner investigation that appears to have been under seal at the time in the Southern District of New York and information obtained pursuant to a grand jury subpoena issued in the Eastern District of Virginia in the Midyear investigation. <==

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