Tag: Adam Schiff

DNI: It’s Legit; ‘No Evidence’ Hunter Biden Emails, Laptop Part Of Russian Disinformation Campaign

by Breck Worsham, posted in Uncategorized

WASHINGTON (National Review) — Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Monday said Hunter Biden’s recovered laptop and emails, which purportedly show Joe Biden had involvement in his son’s foreign business dealings, are “not part of some Russian disinformation campaign.”

Ratcliffe’s comments, which refute claims made by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff that the emails are a smear attempt coming “from the Kremlin,” came during an appearance on FOX Business.

“It’s funny that some of the people who complain the most about intelligence being politicized are the ones politicizing the intelligence,” Ratcliffe said. “Unfortunately, it is Adam Schiff who said the intelligence community believes the Hunter Biden laptop and emails on it are part of a Russian disinformation campaign.”

He continued: “Let me be clear: the intelligence community doesn’t believe that because there is no intelligence that supports that. And we have shared no intelligence with Adam Schiff, or any member of Congress.”

A New York Post report last week details emails which suggest Hunter Biden may have made an introduction between his father, then- Vice President Joe Biden, and a Ukrainian adviser to Burisma Holdings in 2015.

The documents were reportedly recovered from a laptop computer that was dropped off at a repair shop in Delaware in April 2019 but never retrieved. The authenticity of the emails has not been confirmed.

“We know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin,” Schiff said of the emails on CNN. “That’s been clear for well over a year now that they’ve been pushing this false narrative about this vice president and his son.”

Ratcliffe said the claims of Russian disinformation are “simply not true.”

“Hunter Biden’s laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign,” Ratcliffe said. “This is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign.”

He said the laptop is “in the jurisdiction of the FBI” and the Bureau’s investigation “is not centered around Russian disinformation and the intelligence community is not playing any role with respect to that.”

Brittany Bernstein of the National Review contributed to the contents of this report.

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Democrats unveil impeachment procedures against Trump

by Breck Worsham, posted in law, news, politics

WASHINGTON (The Hill) — House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled a resolution to outline the next phase of their impeachment inquiry that will bring their case before the public after weeks of closed-door witness testimony.

The resolution, unveiled by House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), sets up procedures for open hearings by the Intelligence Committee and releasing witness testimony.

It also allows Republicans to request witness testimony and documents, similar to previous impeachment inquiries. But Democrats on the Intelligence panel still have the ability to block the requests.

The resolution is expected to hit the House floor on Thursday.

The leaders of the committees involved in the impeachment process — House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and acting Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) — said that the resolution will prepare lawmakers for the next stage of the inquiry.

“The evidence we have already collected paints the picture of a president who abused his power by using multiple levers of government to press a foreign country to interfere in the 2020 election. Following in the footsteps of previous impeachment inquiries, the next phase will move from closed depositions to open hearings where the American people will learn firsthand about the president’s misconduct,” they said in a joint statement.

The resolution further outlines the format for the upcoming public hearings, which will provide for extended time for questioning and allow committee staff to cross-examine witnesses. Only House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and the panel’s ranking Republican, Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.), or committee employees are allowed to ask questions.

That would be a departure from the typical format of congressional hearings, in which members of each party alternate with five minutes of questioning.

The format is similar to how lawmakers on the three committees leading the impeachment inquiry have been conducting the depositions behind closed doors in a secure facility in the sub-basement of the Capitol for the past month.

Republicans would have to provide “detailed written justification” to suggest subpoenas or request witness testimony. But Democrats have veto power to block Republicans’ requests with a party-line committee vote.

The resolution also directs the House Intelligence Committee to issue a report on its findings and recommendations.

The resolution further outlines the process for transferring materials to the House Judiciary Committee, which would be tasked with formally drafting and approving articles of impeachment.

The Judiciary Committee would be authorized to “promulgate additional procedures as it deems necessary for the fair and efficient conduct of committee hearings.”

The resolution is not meant to formally authorize the impeachment inquiry that is already ongoing, as Republicans and the White House had been demanding for weeks. But it does state that the relevant committees involved in investigating the Trump administration “are directed to continue their ongoing investigations as part of the existing House of Representatives inquiry into whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its Constitutional power to impeach Donald John Trump, President of the United States of America.”

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Trump departs for Wisconsin from the White House in Washington
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump waves prior to departing on a trip to Wisconsin from the White House in Washington, U.S., October 24, 2018. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton/File Photo – RC1C71EBBBD0

SUBPOENAED: Giuliani tapped for documents relating to Ukraine

by Breck Worsham, posted in law, news, politics

WASHINGTON — Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani has been subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee to turn over documents relating to the impeachment efforts against Donald Trump.

Giuliani received a letter on Monday from Reps. Adam Schiff, Elijah Cummings, and Eliot Engel demanding he surrender any and all documents relating to efforts he and President Trump may have taken to persuade the government of Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden or any members of his family.

“Pursuant to the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry, we are hereby transmitting a subpoena that compels you to produce the documents set forth in the accompanying schedule by October 15, 2019,” the letter states.

The letter then goes on to call out several recent interviews in which Giuliani said he’d asked a Ukrainian prosecutor for information about former Vice President Joe Biden.

“In addition to this stark admission, you stated more recently that you are in possession of evidence—in the form of text messages, phone records, and other communications—indicating that you were not acting alone and that other Trump Administration officials may have been involved in this scheme,” the letter continues.

“Our inquiry includes an investigation of credible allegations that you acted as an agent of the President in a scheme to advance his personal political interests by abusing the power of the Office of the President. A growing public record, including your own statements, indicates that the President, you, and others appear to have pressed the Ukrainian government to pursue two politically motivated investigations,” the letter goes on.

“Your failure or refusal to comply with the subpoena, including at the direction or behest of the President or the White House, shall constitute evidence of obstruction of the House’s impeachment inquiry and may be used as an adverse inference against you and the President,” it concludes.

The document states Giuliani has until Oct. 15 to produce evidence in the form of text messages, telephone records and other documentation that shows he was not acting alone, and that other Trump administration officials may have been involved.

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WITCH HUNT: Dems demand records detailing communications between Trump and Putin

by Breck Worsham, posted in law, news, politics, Uncategorized

WASHINGTON — House Democrats are pressing to receive communication records related to President Trump’s communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Democratic leaders announced on Monday.

The move follows allegations by Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) that the president had at one point attempted to have the records of those communications destroyed.

“President Trump, on multiple occasions, appears to have taken steps to conceal the details of his communications with President Putin from other administration officials, Congress, and the American people,” the trio wrote, citing a Washington Post report that claimed such.

The lawmakers further alleged that Trump “may have been manipulated or withheld from the official record in direct contravention of federal laws, which expressly require that Presidents and other administration officials preserve such materials.”

Democrats claim manipulating or withholding such records would violate the Presidential Records Act, which was instituted as a result of President Nixon’s Watergate controversy.

“These allegations, if true, raise profound national security, counterintelligence, and foreign policy concerns, especially in light of Russia’s ongoing active measures campaign to improperly influence American elections,” the chairmen wrote in separate letters to White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Schiff and his cohorts are also demanding that White House and State Department employees with knowledge of the Trump-Putin talks and interpreters who were present at such meetings make themselves available for interviews with the committees.

Republicans swung back at the allegations Monday, calling the effort just another ploy by Democrats to try to impeach Trump.

“With their Russian collusion allegations imploding, the Democrats are weaponizing congressional committees to try to manufacture some new case to use to impeach the president,” Jack Langer, a spokesperson for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said in a statement to The Hill. “After they hyped the collusion hoax for more than two years, I don’t know how anyone can view them as honest investigators as opposed to zealous, partisan operatives.”

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TRUMP: ‘Spy’ plotted to take down my campaign ‘way earlier than the Russian Hoax’

by Breck Worsham, posted in news, politics

Washington, D.C. (The Hill) — President Trump on Friday once again made the claim that the FBI improperly spied on his presidential campaign, suggesting that the bureau used a top-secret informant to surveil his team long before it began investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

“The Democrats are now alluding to the concept that having an Informant placed in an opposing party’s campaign is different than having a Spy, as illegal as that may be,” he tweeted. “But what about an ‘Informant’ who is paid a fortune and who ‘sets up’ way earlier than the Russian Hoax?”

“Can anyone even imagine having Spies placed in a competing campaign, by the people and party in absolute power, for the sole purpose of political advantage and gain?” he wrote in a second tweet. “And to think that the party in question, even with the expenditure of far more money, LOST!”

The tweets were Trump’s latest suggestion that the FBI planted a mole within his campaign to spy on his team under the guise that his associates were being influenced by Moscow.

No evidence has emerged that the FBI spied on Trump’s campaign. The informant, identified in media reports as Stefan Halper, an American academic, reportedly met with at least three advisers on Trump’s campaign in 2016.

It is not clear whether the FBI paid the informant at all for his work.

Trump’s tweets Friday came a day after select lawmakers met with top Justice Department officials for two highly classified meetings to discuss the FBI’s use of the informant in the early months of the counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s role in the election.

After the meetings, congressional Democrats said they saw “no evidence” that the FBI placed a spy in the Trump campaign.

Democrats were also concerned about White House lawyer Emmet Flood’s attendance at the two meetings, with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) noting that his presence “only underscores [that] the President’s legal team expects to use information gleaned improperly from the Justice Department or the President’s allies in Congress to their legal advantage.”

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BUSTED! FBI INFORMANT: Barack Obama knew of Clinton Uranium One deal- Did nothing to stop it

by Breck Worsham, posted in crime, news, politics

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Former president Barack Obama was briefed not once, but twice on the details surrounding the Uranium One scandal and did nothing to stop it, says an FBI informant.

In a bombshell report published Thursday by The Gateway Pundit (https://tinyurl.com/y7s3ycem), an FBI informant is quoted as saying the 44th president knew of a plot by the Clinton Foundation to arrange nuclear sales to Russia for profit but did nothing to prevent it.

The informant, Douglas Campbell, told congressional investigators that Moscow paid millions of dollars to a U.S. lobbying firm which wound up benefitting both the Obama administration and the charity organization run by Bill and Hillary Clinton.

In a 10 page statement, Campbell said Russian nuclear officials “told me at various times that they expected APCO to apply a portion of the $3 million annual lobbying fee it was receiving from the Russians to provide in-kind support for the Clinton’s Global Initiative.”

“The contract called for four payments of $750,000 over twelve months. APCO was expected to give assistance free of charge to the Clinton Global Initiative as part of their effort to create a favorable environment to ensure the Obama administration made affirmative decisions on everything from Uranium One to the U.S.-Russia Civilian Nuclear Cooperation agreement,” the statement continued.

Bill Clinton allegedly received a $500,000 speaking fee from a Russian backed bank, according to published reports (according to published reports (https://tinyurl.com/y9x32rex) and the Clinton Foundation received millions of dollars from insiders involved with the Uranium One deal.

Attorneys for Bill and Hillary Clinton say the payment Bill Clinton received for the speaking engagement had nothing to do with the Uranium One deal and that suggestions otherwise are simply attempts by Republicans to distract from the ongoing investigation into Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election.

During an appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity”, Campbell’s attorney Victoria Toensing said her client has exposed a “strategic plan” by Russian President Vladimir Putin to “take over the uranium industry.”

“[The Russians] were so confident that they told Mr. Campbell with the Clinton’s help, it was a shoo-in to get CFIUS [The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] approval,” Toensing said. “They were so confident in that that they even had him open up the new office because they were planning on the kind of business they were going to do as soon as CFIUS approved it.”

Democrats on Thursday denied Campbell’s claims, calling the allegations more “wild allegations” by Republicans.

“Republicans have been talking directly to this individual while refusing to grant Democratic members access, despite multiple requests,” House oversight and intelligence committee members Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said in a statement. “During this same time period, Republicans have been making wild and unsubstantiated allegations against Secretary Clinton on national television based on this individual’s information.”

Republican lawmakers have called for a formal investigation into the matter.

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‘THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WILL GO TO JAIL’: Leaked House memo reveals abuse of power by Obama FBI, DOJ officials. ‘Worse than Watergate’, says lawmaker

by Breck Worsham, posted in Uncategorized

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Members of the House late Thursday called for the declassification and release of a “shocking” classified memo that reportedly details abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by senior Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigations officials relating to their investigation of then-candidate Donald Trump (https://saraacarter.com/2018/01/18/a-bombshell-house-intelligence-report-exposing-extensive-fisa-abuse-could-lead-to-the-removal-of-senior-government-officials/).

Appearing on Fox News’ “Hannity” Thursday night, Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz said “there are people who will go to jail.”

“I think that this will not end just with firings. I believe there are people who will go to jail,” Gaetz told host Sean Hannity (https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/01/19/rep_gaetz_people_will_go_to_jail_over_nunes_memo_democrats_afraid_to_release_info.html). “I was very persuaded by the evidence, and it also became clear to me why Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham felt it so important to refer this matter for criminal prosecution.”

“The facts contained in this memo are jaw-dropping and demand full transparency. There is no higher priority than the release of this information to preserve our democracy,” continued Gaetz (R-FL), a member of the Judiciary Committee, which oversees the DOJ and the FBI.

At the center of the issue, say Republicans, are admissions of unlawful spying and the “unmasking” of key Trump associates.

“It’s troubling. It is shocking,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) said in agreement to Gaetz’s comments. “Part of me wishes that I didn’t read it because I don’t want to believe that those kinds of things could be happening in this country that I call home and love so much.”

Yet another Judiciary Committee member, Rep. Steve King (R-IA), took to Twitter to say what he saw in the memo he found “sickening,” calling it “worse than Watergate.”

“I have read the memo. The sickening reality has set in. I no longer hold out hope there is an innocent explanation for the information the public has seen,” wrote King (https://twitter.com/SteveKingIA/status/954194729511636992). ” I have long said it is worse than Watergate. It was #neverTrump & #alwaysHillary. #releasethememo”.

The revelation caused a near immediate uproar on social media, leading to demands for the memo’s release.

The pressure to do so apparently worked, as the House Intelligence Committee shortly thereafter approved, by a party-line vote, to make the four-page memo available to all members of the lower chamber.

Members were not permitted to take copies of the memo for their own review and were restricted to viewing the document in a special room inside the Capital building.

Democrats were quick to fight back against the memo’s release, calling the document “misleading”.

“[T]he Majority voted today on a party-line basis to grant House Members access to a profoundly misleading set of talking points drafted by Republican staff attacking the FBI and its handling of the investigation,” House Intelligence Committee leader Adam Schiff, (D)-Calif., said in a statement. “Rife with factual inaccuracies and referencing highly classified materials that most of Republican Intelligence Committee members were forced to acknowledge they had never read, this is meant only to give Republican House members a distorted view of the FBI.”

“This may help carry White House water, but it is a deep disservice to our law enforcement professionals,” Schiff added.

Republicans lawmakers, however, say there is no way they are going to allow Democrats to sweep this under the rug.

“What are the Democrats so afraid of,” Goetz countered. “Why don’t they want the American people to know the truth about what was going on with the government, how that impacted the president, his transition, his campaign? And it just seems interesting to me that Democrats don’t want us to know what the entire basis was in the first place for the Mueller probe. They want to drag this out through the midterm elections to try to embarrass this president and distract this Congress from the critical work we have to do to save this great country.”

Meanwhile, Wikileaks, the anti-secrecy website responsible for the leaking of hacked DNC emails during the 2016 election, has offered a $1 million reward to anyone who can provide them with a verified copy.

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