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FBI Documents Detailing Bruce Ohr Conversations Shed New Light on Spygate Scandal

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Ohr gave FBI information from Simpson and Steele. Documents highlight state department role, conflicting statements, and information excluded from FISA application

Bruce Ohr, who was serving as the highest-ranking career official in the DOJ in 2016, played a crucial role in passing on unfounded allegations against Donald Trump from former British MI6 agent Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson to the FBI.

Interactions between Ohr—who at the time was associate deputy attorney general—and Steele were so frequent that Ohr was assigned an FBI handler, agent Joe Pientka, who summarized the conversations in FBI FD-302 forms.

Those 302s were obtained by Judicial Watch and have been made public. Continue Reading

AG Barr Says Epstein Case Will Continue, Says ‘Co-conspirators Should Not Rest Easy’

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FBI agents raid Epstein’s Little St. James Island

Attorney General William Barr said on Monday during a police conference in New Orleans that there were “serious irregularities” at the Manhattan federal facility where the accused sex trafficker apparently killed himself over the weekend.

Barr, who said he was “appalled” by Epstein’s death, said the case would continue and noted that “any co-conspirators should not rest easy.”

“This sex-trafficking case was very important to the Department of Justice and to me personally, Barr said. It was important to the dedicated prosecutors in the Southern District of New York and to our FBI agents who investigated the case and were preparing it for trial. Most importantly, this case was important to the victims who had the courage to come forward and deserve the opportunity to confront the accused in the courtroom.”Continue Reading

Significant Questions Raised Following Epstein’s Apparent Suicide, Multiple Investigations Opened

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Jeffrey Epstein, the multimillionaire who had recently been indicted on charges of sex trafficking, has been found dead of an apparent suicide in his jail cell. According to a statement from the Department of Justice’s Federal Bureau of Prisons, “Epstein was found unresponsive in his cell in the Special Housing Unit from an apparent suicide at the Metropolitan Correctional Center” in New York City at 6:30 a.m.

The Associated Press reported that “Fire officials received a call at 6:39 a.m. Saturday that Epstein was in cardiac arrest, and he was pronounced dead at New York Presbyterian-Lower Manhattan Hospital.”

The FBI is now investigating the incident.Continue Reading

The ‘Red Flags’ Surrounding Red Flag Laws

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In the wake of two recent mass shootings, calls for the enactment of Red Flag laws have risen exponentially. It’s perfectly understandable that so many want to do something, anything, to help prevent future tragedies such as the ones that took place in El Paso and Dayton. But blind enactment of Red Flag laws is not the appropriate response.

Red Flag laws are effectively prevention laws that allow law enforcement and family members to petition a court to have an individual’s firearms temporarily confiscated if the person is believed to pose a danger to themselves or others.Continue Reading

Civic Nationalism and the Inclusion of All Americans

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Following two separate instances of heinous mass shootings, CNN’s Jake Tapper spent the morning on Aug. 4 asking various presidential candidates about white nationalism.

Specifically, Tapper asked both Robert “Beto” O’Rourke and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) if they believe that President Donald Trump is a white nationalist. Unsurprisingly, both candidates answered in the affirmative.

Tapper, who had previously supervised the CNN Parkland Town Hall that celebrated disgraced Broward County, Florida, Sheriff Scott Israel, also had recently provided a platform on his show, “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” for self-described white nationalist Richard Spencer, who was publicly declaring his opposition to President Trump.

The intent behind Tapper’s questions to O’Rourke and Sanders seems clear—an attempt to conflate the term “nationalist” with “supremacist”—assisted by the inclusion of race into his phrasing. On its face, Tapper’s question, inference, and timing were disturbing, in light of the immediacy of the shootings.Continue Reading

Media Use 27-Year-Old Video in Latest Attempt to Tie Epstein to Trump

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Video taken years before Epstein island purchase, sexual misconduct allegations

Following the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein on charges of molesting underage girls and sex trafficking children, media organizations have tried to tie him to President Donald Trump.

On July 17, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program aired footage showing Trump at a party with Epstein. The footage had previously been aired by NBC News during the presidential election race in 2016.Continue Reading

Jeffrey Epstein’s Ties to Clinton, and His Questionable Source of Wealth

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While media focus on Trump, larger questions remain about Epstein’s finances and ties to Bill Clinton

Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on July 6 after landing at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey upon his return from a trip to France. Epstein was previously indicted in 2007 on charges he abused underage girls, but reached a controversial plea deal, in which he served only 13 months in a low-security facility that allowed him to work from his office each day.

Epstein now faces federal charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking that may lead to him spending the rest of his life in prison. DOJ officials have indicated that they expect the charges against Epstein to expand as they delve further into the case. Attorney General William Barr has said he will not recuse himself from the newly opened Epstein case, although he “will remain recused from any retrospective review” of Epstein’s earlier case in Florida.

Questions surrounding Epstein have existed for a long time, including the source of his wealth and his relationship to former President Bill Clinton, who, according to flight logs, flew on Epstein’s personal jet 26 times.Continue Reading

33 Key Questions for Robert Mueller

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Crucial questions that should be asked when former special counsel testifies before House committees on July 17

Robert Mueller, who investigated allegations of Russia collusion and obstruction of justice for nearly two years as special counsel, will be testifying before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees on July 17.

Mueller’s investigation, which concluded there was no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia and that there was insufficient evidence to support obstruction charges, has been criticized for attempting to inflict political damage on President Donald Trump.

Specifically, Volume II of the Mueller report contained sections that were selectively edited, apparently in order to provide damaging portrayals. Examples include the representation of the transcript of a phone call between the president’s attorney, John Dowd, and the attorney for former national security adviser Michael Flynn; a letter from the attorney of an individual referenced in the Mueller report; and a sequence of dates concerning the meeting between Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and Australian diplomat Alexander Downer. There are also disturbing details surrounding a heavily used witness in the Mueller report, George Nader.Continue Reading

Should Antifa Be Designated a Domestic Terror Group?

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Andy Ngo, a Portland, Oregan, based editor & photo-journalist for Quillette, was assaulted and hospitalized by masked and hooded far-left Antifa extremists on Saturday.

Ngo, who has extensively documented violence by Antifa, had written on Twitter a day earlier that he was nervous about the coming rally, noting that Antifa members had been “promising ‘physical confrontation’ & have singled me out to be assaulted.”

Following the assault, Ngo was hospitalized with multiple contusions, a black eye, and a torn earlobe. He also suffered a brain bleed that required overnight hospitalization. Ngo posted a video of himself moments after the attack, appearing shaken and covered in a white substance. Portland police later said that Antifa was mixing quick-drying cement into milkshakes to be thrown at those they targeted. It is not known if Ngo was hit with one of these mixtures.Continue Reading

Tracing the Origins of Congressional Democrats’ ‘Obstruction’ Strategy

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Efforts by members of Congress to advance the narrative that President Donald Trump “obstructed justice” have now replaced the disproven claims of Trump-Russia collusion.

The public narrative of obstruction, however, originated prior to the conclusion of the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller and his resulting report.

Less than six months after Mueller’s appointment—on Oct. 10, 2017—the Brookings Institution published the first of two reports titled “Presidential Obstruction of Justice: The Case of Donald J. Trump,” which outlined, among other things, a scenario whereby Mueller would refer his obstruction findings to Congress, which would then take up the matter and continue investigating. The report also discussed ways in which Congress could impeach the president, mentioning the word “impeachment” a total of 90 times.Continue Reading