78. Ibid.
79. Federal Bureau of Investigation, “FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (DIOG),” https://vault.fbi.gov/FBI%20Domestic%20Investigations%20and%20Operations%20Guide%20%28DIOG%29; “The Attorney General’s Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations,” Department of Justice, https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/docs/guidelines.pdf.
80. “Committee on the Judiciary and Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Joint Hearing on ‘Oversight of FBI and DOJ Actions Surrounding the 2016 Election: Testimony by FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok.’ ”
81. Philip Bump, “How The Two Rogue FBI Officials Explain Their Text Messages About Trump,” The Washington Post, June 14, 2018; John Solomon, “Opinion: One FBI Text Message In Russia Probe That Should Alarm Every American,” The Hill, July 19, 2018.
82. Jan Crawford, “William Barr Interview: Read the Full Transcript,” CBS News, May 31, 2019.
83. “Ex-Mueller Aides’ Texts Revealed: Read Them Here.”
84. Ibid.
85. Andrew G. McCabe, The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2019), 192.
86. Inspector General Report, “A Review of Various Actions By the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice in Advance of the 2016 Election.”
87. Ibid.
88. Paul Sperry, “Despite Comey Assurances, Vast Bulk of Weiner Laptop Emails Were Never Examined,” RealClearInvestigations, August 23, 2018.
89. James B. Comey, “Letter from FBI Related to Clinton Email Case,” New York Times, November 6, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/06/us/politics/fbi-letter-emails.html.
90. Sperry, “Despite Comey Assurances, Vast Bulk of Weiner Laptop Emails Were Never Examined.”
91. Office of Inspector General, “A Review of Various Actions By the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice in Advance of the 2016 Election,” 497.
92. Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, and Nicholas Fandos, “Code Name Crossfire Hurricane: The Secret Origins of the Trump Investigation,” New York Times, May 16, 2018.
93. Malia Zimmerman and Adam Housley, “FBI, DOJ Roiled by Comey, Lynch Decision to Let Clinton Slide by on Emails, Says Insider,” Fox News, October 13, 2016.
94. Jarrett, The Russia Hoax, 43–45.
95. Tal Kopan and Evan Perez, “FBI Releases Hillary Clinton Email Report,” CNN, September 2, 2016; Aaron Blake, “Hillary Clinton Told the FBI She Couldn’t Recall Something More than Three Dozen Times,” Washington Post, September 2, 2016.
96. Chuck Ross, “Top Clinton Aides Face No Charges After Making False Statements to FBI,” Daily Caller, December 4, 2017.
97. Ibid.
98. “Judicial Watch Releases Testimony of Clinton Email Administrator—Clinton Lawyer Cheryl Mills Communicated with Him a Week Prior to Testimony,” Judicial Watch, June 18, 2019.
99. “FBI Docs Show Notes About Meeting with Intelligence Community Inspector General About Clinton Emails Are ‘Missing’ and CD Containing Notes Is Likely ‘Damaged’ Irreparably,” Judicial Watch, June 7, 2019.
100. Gregg Re, “Attempt to Hack Email Server Stunning Clinton Aide, FBI Files Show,” Fox News, May 7, 2019.
101. Nolan Hicks and Bruce Golding, “Slow Team Hill Response to Server Hack,” New York Post, May 8, 2019.
102. “Judicial Watch Releases Testimony of Clinton Email Administrator.” See also “JW v State Benghazi Talking Points Transcript 01242,” October 16, 2018, https://www.judicialwatch.org/document-archive/jw-v-state-benghazi-talking-points-transcript-01242-2/.
103. Mark Tapscott, “Abedin’s Key Clinton Email Claim Contradicted by Former Aide,” The Epoch Times, June 18, 2019.
104. Ross, “Top Clinton Aides Face No Charges After Making False Statements to FBI.”
105. Grassley, “Grassley on Investigation: Let’s Be Transparent.”
106. Federal Bureau of Investigation, “FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide” (DIOG); “The Attorney General’s Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations.”
107. John Solomon, “FBI’s Top Lawyer Believed Hillary Clinton Should Face Charges, but Was Talked Out of It,” The Hill, February 20, 2019.
108. Ibid.
109. Ibid.
110. Ginni Thomas, “The Obama Administration’s ‘Brazen Plot to Exonerate Hillary Clinton’ Starting to Leak Out, According to Former Fed Prosecutor,” Daily Caller, January 20, 2018.
111. United States Code, 44 U.S.C. § 3101 et al., “Records Management by Agency Heads, General Duties”; Foreign Affairs Manual, 5 F.A.M. 441(h)(2), et al.
112. Patrick F. Kennedy, memorandum re “Senior Officials’ Records Management Responsibilities,” August 28, 2014, https://www.archives.gov/files/press/press-releases/2015/pdf/attachment1-memo-to-department-leadership.pdf. (Kennedy: “All records generated by Senior Officials belong to the Department of State.”)
113. United States Code, 18 U.S.C. § 641, “Public Money, Property or Records.”
114. “Clinton Email Investigation,” Federal Bureau of Investigation, September 2, 2016, 19, available at https://vault.fbi.gov/hillary-r.-clinton.
115. Adam Goldman and Michael S. Schmidt, “6 Things We Learned in the FBI Clinton Email Investigation,” New York Times, September 2, 2016.
116. United States Code, 18 U.S.C. § 2071(b), “Concealment, Removal or Mutilation Generally.”
117. “Clinton Email Investigation,” 18; Byron York, “From FBI Fragments, A Question: Did Team Clinton Destroy Evidence Under Subpoena?,” Washington Examiner, September 3, 2016; DeRoy Murdock, “Obstruction of Justice Haunts Hillary’s Future,” National Review, September 8, 2016.
118. David E. Kendall, letter to Trey Gowdy, Chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, March 27, 2015, available at http://wallstreetonparade.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/David-Kendall-Letter-to-Trey-Gowdy-Chair-House-Select-Committee-on-Benghazi-March-27-2015.pdf.; Lauren French, “Gowdy: Clinton Wiped Her Server Clean,” Politico, March 27, 2015.
119. United States Code, 18 U.S.C. § 1505, “Obstruction of Justice Proceedings Before Departments, Agencies and Committees”; United States Code, 18 U.S.C. § 1515(b), “Definitions for Certain Provisions, General Provision.” See also United States Code, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1503, 1512.
120. McCabe, The Threat, 175–76.
121. “Statement by James B. Comey, Director of the FBI, before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,” July 8, 2016, available at https://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/08/full-text-james-comey-trump-russia-testimony-239295.
122. Ibid.
123. Gregg Re and Catherine Herridge, “State Department Identifies 23 Violations, ‘Multiple Security Incidents’ Concerning Clinton Emails,” Fox News, June 17, 2019; Chuck Ross, “State Department Identifies 30 Security Incidents Related to Hillary Clinton’s Email Server,” Daily Caller, June 17, 2019.
124. Mary Elizabeth Taylor, assistant secretary, Bureau of Legislative Affairs, letter to The Honorable Charles Grassley, chairman, Committee on Finance, June 5, 2019, https://www.grassley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2019-06-05%20State%20to%20CEG%20%28Security%20Investigation%20Follow-Up%29.pdf.
125. Re and Herridge, “State Department Identifies 23 Violations”; Re, “Attempt to Hack Email Server Stunned Clinton Aide, FBI Files Show.”
126. Adam Shaw, “Chinese Company Reportedly Hacked Clinton’s Server, Got Copy Of Every Email In Real-Time,” Fox News, August 29, 2018; Gregg Re, “Attempt To Hack Email Server Stunned Clinton Aide, FBI Files Show,” Fox News, May 7, 2019; Richard Pollock, “Sources: China Hacked Hillary Clinton’s Private Email Server,” Daily Caller, August 27, 2018.
127. Adam Shaw, “Chinese Company Reportedly Hacked Clinton’s Server, Got Copy of Every Email in Real-Time,” Fox News, August 29, 2018.
128. Maria Bartiromo, interview with Representative Doug Collins, Sunday Morning Futures, Fox News, March 17, 2019. See also transcript posted by Tim Hains, “Rep. Doug Collins
on Page, McCabe and Strzok Testimony: ‘Loretta Lynch Has Some Explaining to Do,’ ” RealClearPolitics, March 17, 2019.
129. Hains, “Rep. Doug Collins on Page, McCabe and Strzok Testimony.”
130. John Solomon, “Forgetting Hanssen Scandal’s Failures: FBI Saw Agent’s Affair as Security Risk but Took Little Action,” The Hill, March 3, 2019.
131. Jeff Mordock, “Former FBI Official Feared Strzok-Page Affair Could Compromise Them,” Washington Times, April 2, 2019.
132. Solomon, “Forgetting Hanssen Scandal’s Failures.”
133. Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives, “Interview of: Peter Strzok.” See also Jerry Dunleavy and Daniel Chaitin, “Peter Strzok Said Mueller Never Asked if Anti-Trump Bias Influenced Russia Investigation Decisions,” Washington Examiner, March 14, 2019.
134. Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives, “Interview of: Peter Strzok.”
135. Ibid.
136. Aaron Blake, “Nobody Did More Damage to Robert Mueller Than Peter Strzok,” Washington Post, August 13, 2018.
137. “Report of Investigation: Recovery of Text Messages From Certain FBI Mobile Devices,” Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice, December 2018, available at https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2018/i-2018-003523.pdf.
138. Byron York, “New Justice Department Report Asks: In Anti-Trump Text Probe, What Happened To Strzok, Page iPhones?,” Washington Examiner, December 17, 2018.
139. Crawford, “William Barr Interview.”
Chapter 2: Clinton Collusion
1. “Hillary Clinton Remarks on Counterterrorism,” March 23, 2016, C-SPAN.
2. Katie Reilly, “Read Hillary Clinton’s Speech on Donald Trump and National Security,” Time, June 2, 2016.
3. Ibid.
4. Michael Doran, “The Real Collusion Story,” National Review, March 13, 2018.
5. Ibid.
6. Gregory Krieg and Joshua Berlinger, “Hillary Clinton: Donald Trump Would Be Putin’s ‘Puppet,’ ” CNN, October 20, 2016.
7. Adam Entous, Devlin Barrett, and Rosalind S. Helderman, “Clinton Campaign, DNC Paid for Research That Led to Russia Dossier,” Washington Post, October 24, 2017; Kenneth P. Vogel, “Clinton Campaign and Democratic Party Helped Pay for Russia Trump Dossier,” New York Times, October 24, 2017.
8. Kenneth Vogel and Maggie Haberman, “Conservative Website First Funded Anti-Trump Research by Firm That Later Produced Dossier,” New York Times, October 27, 2017.
9. Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. Senate, “Interview of: Glenn Simpson,” August 22, 2017, https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/3/9/3974a291-ddbe-4525-9ed1-22bab43c05ae/934A3562824CACA7BB4D915E97709D2F.simpson-transcript-redacted.pdf, 77.
10. Devlin Barrett, Sari Horowitz, and Adam Entous, “Conservative Website First Paid Fusion GPS for Trump Research That Led to Dossier,” Washington Post, October 27, 2017.
11. Ibid.
12. Brooke Seipel, “Fusion GPS Paid Ex–British Spy $168,000 for Working on Dossier,” The Hill, November 1, 2017; Mark Hosenball, “Ex–British Spy Paid $168,000 for Trump Dossier, U.S. Firm Discloses,” Reuters, November 1, 2017.
13. Brooke Singman, “FISA Memo: Steele Fired as an FBI Source for Breaking ‘Cardinal Rule’—Leaking to the Media,” Fox News, February 2, 2018.
14. Ken Bensinger, Miriam Elder, and Mark Schoofs, “These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties to Russia,” BuzzFeed, January 10, 2017; “Company Intelligence Report 2016/080,” December 13, 2016, https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984-Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.html.
15. Ibid.
16. Paul Roderick Gregory, “The Trump Dossier Is Fake—and Here are the Reasons Why,” Forbes, January 13, 2017.
17. Chuck Ross, “Christopher Steele Reportedly Worked for Sanctioned Russian Oligarch,” Daily Caller, August 29, 2018; John Solomon, “Russian Oligarch, Justice Department Clear Case of Collusion,” The Hill, August 28, 2018; Byron York, “Emails Show 2016 Links Among Steele, Ohr, Simpson—with Russian Oligarch in Background,” Washington Examiner, August 8, 2018.
18. Kenneth P. Vogel and Matthew Rosenberg, “Agents Tried to Flip Russian Oligarchs. The Fallout Spread to Trump,” New York Times, September 1, 2018.
19. Virginia Heffernan, “A Close Reading of Glenn Simpson’s Trump-Russia Testimony,” Los Angeles Times, January 14, 2018.
20. Glenn R. Simpson and Mary Jacoby, “How Lobbyists Help Ex-Soviets Woo Washington,” Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2007.
21. Lee Smith, “Did President Obama Read the ‘Steele Dossier’ in the White House Last August?,” Tablet Magazine, December 20, 2017.
22. Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. Senate, “Interview of: Glenn Simpson.”
23. Virginia Heffernan, “A Close Reading of Glenn Simpson’s Trump-Russia Testimony,” Los Angeles Times, January 14, 2018.
24. Chuck Grassley, “Grassley Statement at Hearing on Enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act,” July 26, 2017, https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-statement-hearing-enforcement-foreign-agents-registration-act.
25. Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. Senate, “Interview of: Glenn Simpson.”
26. Ken Dilanian, “Trump Dossier Firm Also Supplied Info Used in Trump Tower Meeting with Russian Lawyer,” NBC News, November 10, 2017.
27. Catherine Herridge, Pamela K. Browne, and Cyd Upson, “Russian Lawyer at Center of Trump Tower Meeting Dismisses Dossier Shared with FBI,” Fox News, January 19, 2018.
28. “Russian Collusion: It Was Hillary Clinton All Along,” Investor’s Business Daily, August 13, 2018.
29. Michael Doran, “The Real Collusion Story,” National Review, March 13, 2018.
30. In the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, Between (1) Aleksej Gubarev, (2) Webzilla B.V., (3) Webzilla Limited, (4) XBT Holding S.A. and (1) Orbis Business Intelligence Limited, (2) Christopher Steele, “Defendants’ Response to Claimants’ Request for Further Information Pursuant to CPR Part 18,” https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3892131/Trump-Dossier-Suit.pdf, 7.
31. Christopher Steele, disposition, Gubarev v. Orbis, June 18, 2018, https://www.scribd.com/document/401997457/Steele-deposition-Exhibit-66#from_embed?campaign=VigLink&ad_group=xxc1xx&source=hp_affiliate&medium=affiliate.
32. Ashe Schow, “Christopher Steele’s Former MI6 Boss Slams Trump Dossier as ‘Overrated,’ ” Information Clearing House, March 19, 2019, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51291.htm.
33. Martin Robinson, “Former Spy Chris Steele’s Friends Describe a ‘Show-Off’ 007 Figure but MI6 Bosses Brand Him ‘An Idiot’ for an ‘Appalling Lack of Judgement’ over the Trump ‘Dirty Dossier,’ ” The Daily Mail, January 13, 2017.
34. Catherine Herridge, Pamela K. Brown, and Cyd Upson, “Clinton Associates Fed Information to Trump Dossier Author Steele, Memo Says,” Fox News, February 5, 2018.
35. Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump (New York: Twelve, 2018).
36. In the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, “Defendants’ Response,” 7.
37. Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. Senate, “Interview of: Glenn Simpson.”
38. Executive Session, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. House of Representatives, “Interview of: Glenn Simpson,” November 14, 2017, https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IG/IG00/20180118/106796/HMTG-115-IG00-20180118-SD002.pdf, 70.
39. Kimberley A. Strassel, “Who Paid for the ‘Trump Dossier’?,” Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2017; Kimberley A. Strassel, “The Fusion Collusion,” Wall Street Journal, October 19, 2017.
40. Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. Senate, “Interview of: Glenn Simpson.”
41. Mike Levine, “Trump ‘Dossier’ Stuck in New York, Didn’t Trigger Russia Investigation, Sources Say,” ABC News, September 18, 2018; Luke Harding, “How Trump Walked into Putin’s Web,” Guardian, November 15, 2017.
4
2. Jeff Carlson, “Exclusive: McCabe’s FBI Tried to Re-engage Christopher Steele After Comey Was Fired,” The Epoch Times, January 14, 2019 (updated March 8, 2019); Jane Mayer, “Christopher Steele, the Man Behind the Trump Dossier,” The New Yorker, March 12, 2018.
43. Rowan Scarborough, “Obama Aide Started Christopher Steele–FBI Alliance,” Washington Times, March 13, 2018.
44. Jeff Carlson, “Clinton Campaign Relied on Former Spy’s Web of Connections to Frame Trump,” The Epoch Times, January 23, 2019 (updated March 8, 2019).
45. Ken Bensinger, Miriam Elder, and Mark Schoofs, “These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties to Russia,” BuzzFeed, January 10, 2017; “Company Intelligence Report 2016/080.”
46. Scott Shane, Mark Mazzetti, and Adam Goldman, “Trump Adviser’s Visit to Moscow Got the FBI’s Attention,” New York Times, April 19, 2017.
47. Philip Bump, “A Timeline of the Roger Stone–WikiLeaks Question,” Washington Post, November 27, 2018; Ellen Nakashima, “Russian Government Hackers Penetrated DNC, Stole Opposition Research on Trump,” Washington Post, June 14, 2016; Mark Tran, “WikiLeaks to Publish More Hillary Clinton Emails—Julian Assange,” The Guardian, June 12, 2016.
48. Gregg Jarrett, The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump (New York: Broadside Books, 2018), 135–38.
49. Anna Giaritelli, “Carter Page Says He’s Never Spoken with Trump in His Life,” Washington Examiner, February 6, 2018; U.S. House of Representatives, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, “Testimony of Carter Page,” November 2, 2017, http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4366245-Carter-Page-Transcript-of-Interview-With-House.html, 157.
50. Ibid., 36.
51. Rosie Gray, “Michael Cohen: ‘It Is Fake News Meant to Malign Mr. Trump,’ ” The Atlantic, January 10, 2017.
52. “Full Text of Michael Cohen’s Testimony to Congress,” The Guardian, February 27, 2019; also https://www.scribd.com/document/400649065/Testimony-of-Michael-D-Cohen.
53. Andrew C. McCarthy, “The Strzok-Page Texts and the Origins of the Trump-Russia Investigation,” National Review, May 14, 2018.
Witch Hunt Page 49