A recent FOIA release from Judicial Watch (full pdf below) reveals that two of Mueller’s initial FBI agents, based on dates and redactions – likely Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka, visited James Comey on June 7th, 2017, to retrieve a collection of his memos.
[However, a word of caution, one of the memos was titled “last night at 6:30pm” and is being widely misinterpreted to have been written the night before (June 6th, 2017) when that is not accurate. It is likely that memo relates to the January dinner in the White House with President Trump that held the same sentence.]
If we ignore the misinterpreted “last night” memo aspect (dinner with potus in January ’17), here’s what we can learn from this FOIA release:
♦First, the memos were picked up while FBI agent’s Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka were lead FBI agents that transferred into the Mueller team. Therefore it’s likely they were the two who traveled to Comey’s house for this June 7th effort. (more…)
Former Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker appears with Lou Dobbs to discuss ongoing issues in/around the DOJ and FBI.
Matt Whitaker notes the corrupt members of the FBI/DOJ who have left the institution; but stops short of criticizing current FBI Director Chris Wray. Whitaker expresses strong support and respect for John Ratcliffe’s nomination to ODNI.
Whitaker positions himself as an advocate for transparency, but is careful not to be critical of those in the DOJ and FBI who are working diligently against releasing documents that would actually bring about transparency. The implied message is that declassification of material will ultimately force transparency…. [but he doesn’t say it].
…Every minute spent outraged at what Comey, McCabe or Muller did yesterday, is one minute less that Bill Barr is being held accountable for what he is not doing today…
Jumpin’ ju-ju bones, there’s big news in here. Actual Bombshells! For real Tick Tocks and much much more….
Former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker appeared on Fox News to discuss the replacement of Dan Coats with John Ratcliffe as head of the ODNI, and the current status of AG Bill Barr’s ongoing reviews into prior DOJ and FBI (mis)conduct.
Whitaker posits the placement of Ratcliffe as looking at the aggregate intelligence apparatus and seeing if there “are systemic issues and failures for how the investigations were kicked-off”; and the engagements with other countries (FBI and CIA).
Additionally Whitaker summarizes U.S. Attorney John Durham as focused on the origin of the intelligence operation against candidate Trump and “prosecuting anyone that needs to be prosecuted“. [By the way, that seems to confirm Durham as an official “investigation”, not a “review”.] Then comes the BOMBSHELL…. (@01:26 below) while seemingly not realizing what he just said, Whitaker outlines U.S. Attorney John Huber as reviewing “anything related to Comey’s memos and the like.” Boom… There it is.
THAT finally explains why the DOJ is fighting the release of the David Archey declarations in the FOIA lawsuit by CNN. [Listen carefully at 01:26 of the interview]
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Until that obscure comment, likely a slip that not many would catch, there has been no valid explanation by the DOJ about any investigation of the Comey memos, which would also encompass the “Archey Declarations”.
If U.S. Attorney John Huber is indeed looking at those Comey memos, that would explain why the DOJ is fighting the release of the Archey Declarations in the DC Circuit Court with Judge James E Boasberg. Now it makes sense. That little obscure comment by Whitaker is a big effen’ deal. (more…)
Speaking to WMAL radio, former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova informs the audience that declassified documents will begin to be made public starting Wednesday July 31st.
Additionally, Mr. diGenova states confidently that U.S. Attorney John Durham is not conducting a “review”, but is conducting a full criminal investigation with a grand jury empaneled and currently receiving testimony from witnesses.
The comments come at 04:58of the audio/video below [Prompted just hit play]
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Obviously Joe diGenova is making a very specific statement with measurable and specific action to come on very specific day. Good news !!
On May 23rd, 2019, President Trump gave AG Bill Barr unilateral authority to declassify documents. A month later, against the backdrop of more evidence surfacing showing corruption within the DOJ and FBI (June 14th, 2019), and with a negative balance in the trust account, twenty three House republicans asked President Trump not to wait.
Here’s the list of material possible for declassification, and the intelligence offices who hold custodial authority over the compartmented documents. This was the original list as outlined in 2018: (more…)
Representative John Ratcliffe tweets a statement after President Trump announces his nomination for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI):
There has been some speculation that ODNI Dan Coats needed to step aside because he was refusing to comply with the declassification process. It’s worth waiting to see if that assumption is accurate, or if the speculation is unfounded. However, there is validity to the speculation based on the structure of how executive declassification is done. (more…)
This was rumored earlier today [New York Times] and [Axios]. Now Confirmed.
President Trump has announced via Twitter that Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats is departing. He will be leaving office on August 15th, 2019. President Trump has announced the nomination of Representative John Ratcliffe to be the next head of the Office of Director of National Intelligence. Representative John Ratcliffe is a member of the House Judiciary Committee and House Intelligence Committee. Ratcliffe is one of only a few people who has seen all of the unredacted DOJ and FBI evidence within the documents congress has previously asked the President to declassify.
Representative John Ratcliffe currently holds a top-level security clearance. John Ratcliffe is very even tempered albeit direct by natural disposition.
Ratcliffe’s nomination, and confirmation should be unremarkable.
However, due to the information that Ratcliffe already holds about the overall intelligence community operation in 2015 through 2019, we can expect the deepest part of the Deep State to immediately begin a process to impede any confirmation effort. Ratcliffe is a risk, and he will likely be controversialized in a political effort to block his nomination.
Earlier today Ratcliffe spoke to Maria Bartiromo about ongoing concerns around the DOJ, CIA, and FBI operations in 2016: (more…)
On May 23rd, 2019, President Donald Trump gave U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr full authority to review and release all of the classified material hidden by the DOJ and FBI.
Sixty-five days ago….
It has been 65 days since President Trump empowered AG Bill Barr to release the original authorizing scope of the Mueller investigation on May 17, 2017. A Mueller investigation now being debated and testified to in congress, and yet we are not allowed to know what the authorizing scope was…. Nor the 2nd DOJ scope memo of August 2nd, 2017… Nor the 3rd DOJ scope memo of October 20th, 2017.
…Every minute spent outraged at what Muller did yesterday, is one minute less that Bill Barr is being held accountable for what he is not doing today…
President Trump granted full declassification authority to AG Bill Barr in May of this year. There has been some discussion about Bill Barr not releasing any information. In an interview last week with Sean Hannity, President Trump outlined his thoughts on the declassification issue:
[Transcript] HANNITY: Mr. President, you have the power to literally release the FISA applications and the 302’s and the gang made information and you made a decision to hand it over to the Attorney General and let him decide. And I’m curious as to why?
TRUMP: Well, we have a very respected gentleman, very high quality person named William Barr and he is doing – I can tell you he’s working so hard and rather than just doing a total release, I gave him a total release, in other words he’s got everything anything he needs, he’s got it.
Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Doug Collins and Intel Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes appear on Fox News to discuss their perspective on Robert Mueller, the issues revealed by the testimony, and the behind-the-schemes maneuvers of the democrats on both committees. It’s an interesting dual-interview.
In our opinion the content of the diary by former FBI Director James Comey, as outlined in what has formally been called “The Comey Memos”, is devastating to the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI. How do we know? Because the FBI is fighting like hell to keep even descriptions of the memo(s) content from becoming public.
Here’s something you don’t see CTH say every day…. We’re on the side of CNN !
Rather complex backstory with citations HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.
In the background of what was The Mueller Investigation, there was a FOIA case where the FBI was fighting to stop the release of the Comey memos.
Within that courtroom fight Mueller’s lead FBI agent David Archey wrote a series of declarations to the court describing the content of the memos and arguing why they should be kept classified.
The FOIA fight shifted.
The plaintiff, CNN, argued for public release of the content of the FBI agent’s descriptions, now known as the “Archey Declarations”. Hat Tip Techno Fog for the latest court filing update. As you can see from the filing graphic, the DOJ is requesting more time to file a response to a motion that would force them to release the “Archey Declarations” [detailed explanations of what’s inside the Comey Memos].
After a lengthy back-and-forth legal contest, on June 7th Judge James E Boasberg agreed to allow the FBI to keep the Comey memo content hidden, but instructed the DOJ/FBI to release the content of the Archey Declarations. (more…)
(pdf here)
