Tag Archives: FBI Director Chief-of-staff James Rybicki

Mar 31 2018

Deal or No Deal – There’s a Transparency Within Two Factions of DOJ and FBI Political “Small Group”…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree house on March 30, 2018 by

It was Friday December 1st, 2017, when the media first hit the headlines announcing the guilty plea for former National Security Adviser General Mike Flynn.  It was less than 24 hours later, Saturday December 2nd, when ‘a group’ within the DOJ hit back with announcements revealing the political bias of FBI Agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page.

Despite the transparency of timing the media ignored the relationship between the two events.  However, people who were following the granular details -within the intelligence community conflict- accepted the IG releases would be used as fuel for congressional review and inquiry….. and that’s exactly what happened.

Unfortunately, the focus was so intense on what later became ‘dueling memos’ no-one paused to look at the granules against the bigger picture.  Despite the media story pointing out Strzok and Page were removed from duties on the Special Counsel (Mueller) team in July and August 2017, no-one questioned what was happening between July/August 2017 and the December 2nd media release announcing their dispatch.

If anyone in January had begun cross referencing the Nunes, Goodlatte, Grassley discoveries and their volumes of investigative interviews; against the backdrop of the IG information to Mueller in July ’17; they would have possibly connected the dots that outlined the appearance of a criminal review – and a transparent need for an authorized DOJ entity to construct rules for cooperation within the ongoing IG investigation.

We now know Attorney General Jeff Sessions and DAG Rod Rosenstein assigned federal prosecutor John W. Huber to that task.  However, even without knowing his name, we always knew the existence of the parallel prosecutor because the fingerprints of his tasks were evident.

The IG couldn’t simultaneously report on his discovery of criminal conduct and yet construct the parameters for cooperation and compliance with his investigation.  IG Horowitz doesn’t have that authority, that’s a federal prosecutors job.

So if people within the FBI and DOJ were cooperating with an internal investigation that was discovering criminal conduct, someone from within the DOJ had to be cutting the deals.   Jeff Sessions told us yesterday that person is John Huber.

As a person familiar with such specific investigative measures shared:

“They are sat down, told to not do anything, say anything or discuss anything UNTIL they get an attorney. At which time, the attorney is handed a letter from the investigating unit. That letter says in essence, this is how screwed you are. If you want to be less screwed you will sign this letter of cooperation and assist us. When we don’t need you, you sit there. When we do we will call you and you will provide what we need. Any deviation from this agreement lands you in jail for the full term.”

If you stand back and look at all activity from July 2017 through March 2018 you can get a good feel for who is inside the “small group”, who is cooperating and who is not.

♦COOPERATING GROUP – FBI Agent Peter Strzok, FBI/DOJ lawyer Lisa Page, DOJ Attorney Bruce Ohr, DOJ-NSD Deputy Asst. Attorney General George Toscas; FBI Chief Legal Counsel James Baker and Asst. FBI Director in charge of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap, are all still employed within the system.  Strzok, Page, Ohr, and Baker have been removed from responsibilities, but there are still there.  Bill Priestap is still in responsibility and still there.

♦NOT COOPERATING GROUP – FBI Communications Director Mike Kortan (quit), DOJ-NSD Deputy Asst. Attorney General David Laufman (quit), DOJAG Loretta Lynch AAG Sally Yates, -NSD Asst Attorney General Mary McCord (quit), FBI Director James Comey (fired), Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe (fired), FBI Director Chief-of-staff James Rybicki (quit).

AG Sessions, while responding to an irrelevant congressional request for a special counsel, told us yesterday that Huber is in charge of a “team” of prosecutors.  Yet some weird and seemingly illogical reason, many people don’t seem to understand that.

There’s already a team of prosecutors reviewing all the evidence of criminality collected by Inspector General Horowitz.  FULLSTOP.

There’s no need for a special counsel.  Jonathan Turley understands this.

It is nonsensical to demand a Special Counsel when there has been a team of federal prosecutors reviewing the evidence for over six months.  The outcome of their collective effort goes directly to federal indictments; there is simply no need for a special counsel.

Remember, the IG is looking at gross misconduct of official DOJ and FBI policy and practices.  The prosecutor is looking at criminal misconduct from within those offices.   The IG releases findings to the public, the prosecutor does not – until the courtroom.   There is an overlap within the parallel of the IG and Prosecutor, but both have entirely different objectives.

There’s also evidence of an existing Grand Jury.

There are two types of federal grand juries:  Under 18 US Code Sec. 3321 SEE HERE  And Special Grand Juries under 18 US Code Sec 3331 SEE HERE

If you review Code Sec 3331 for special grand juries you’ll see that the criminal activity has to be “in the district”, and that special grand juries don’t have to be impaneled new. Existing ones can be used for new/different purposes.  Section 158 of the US Attorneys manual is pretty much based on 3331: SEE HERE

The location of the grand jury is directly connected to the criminality behind the FBI and DOJ conduct.  The location of the criminality determines the location of the Grand Jury.

Within the current IG Horowitz/Prosecutor Huber investigation there is a lot of varied criminality…. however there is one location where many of the criminal actions overlap…. that’s the location of the currently seated Grand Jury.

Mar 20 2018

Fired FBI Director Andrew McCabe Hugs James Comey Upon Exit…


RE-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on March 17, 2018 by

In an effort to protect himself from criminal indictment fired Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe centered his defense last night around politics. This is the same ongoing approach deployed by fired FBI Director James Comey.

Within the McCabe statement he attempts to hug Comey tightly:

… […]  The OIG investigation has focused on information I chose to share with a reporter [Devlin Barrett] through my public affairs officer [Michael Kortan] and a legal counselor [James Baker].

As Deputy Director, I was one of only a few people who had the authority to do that. It was not a secret, it took place over several days, and others, including the Director [James Comey], were aware of the interaction with the reporter [Devlin Barrett].  (read full statement)

Which begs the question, if the intent to shape a more favorable narrative for McCabe “was not a secret” then why did the resulting article quote only innocuous “according to FBI officials” citations as oppose to quoting the actual people delivering the information?

It should be noted in the October 23rd, 2016, WSJ article – the overall narrative being sold by Andrew McCabe through Mike Kortan, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok was the decision to drop the Clinton investigation rested entirely on James Comey.  In essence, FBI Asst. Director McCabe was attempting to distance his sketchy financial ties to Hillary Clinton from the decision to drop the investigation.

(link)

Here’s the backstory:

Prior reporting showed Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe -along with the entire small group- became aware of the Clinton emails on the Huma Abedin/Anthony Weiner laptop on September 28th, 2016.  Attempting to protect Hillary Clinton, text messages showed McCabe and crew withheld that information for several weeks until October 28, 2016, when congress was notified and a public statement was made by Mike Kortan and FBI Director James Comey.

♦In January of this year Senator Chuck Grassley released a series of text messages between Page and Strzok (full pdf here). Within the release there is a portion of messaging where Lisa Page is identified on the phone with “Devlin” (see page #5 – screen grab below):

[Peter Strzok is ‘INBOX’ and Lisa Page is “OUTBOX’]

The “Devlin” in question is former Wall Street Journal National Security reporter Devlin Barrett, currently with The Washington Post.  In the above cited text message exchange Lisa Page is on the phone with Devlin Barrett when the news of the Abedin/Weiner laptop Clinton emails was released.  “Mike’s phone is on fire” is referencing former FBI Public Affairs Director, Michael “Mike” Kortan.

♦However, simultaneous to this October 2016 FBI/Clinton investigation matter there was internal “small group” discussion about another controversial issue: the need for Andrew McCabe to recuse himself from the financial investigation of Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.

FBI Chief of Staff James “Jim” Rybicki held the opinion that McCabe should recuse himself.  However, taking that action may have compromised McCabe’s ability to protect Hillary Clinton.  Lisa Page was the legal counsel to McCabe during these events and discussions, and didn’t see the need for a recusal or change of prior plans.

On October 23rd, 2016, Devlin Barrett again reported on a scoop:

“Scoop: McAuliffe PAC gave $467,500 to campaign of wife of senior FBI official who oversaw Clinton email probe” (link)

(Tweet Link) and (Story Link)

This October 23rd, 2016, “scoop” aligns with the internal text messaging discussion between Agent Peter Strzok and FBI Attorney Lisa Page who were discussing James Comey’s chief-of-staff James Rybicki recommending that FBI Asst. Director Andrew “Andy” McCabe should be recused from the Hillary Clinton investigation.

From the messaging the recusal was discussed mid-through-late October 2016:

00:52am …”if it’s a matter similar to those we’ve been talking about lately”…

The sourcing for the exclusive report by Devlin Barrett contained great details about the internal discussion on the controversy of Andrew McCabe and his financial connections to Clinton/McAuliffe.

We now know the leaks for the story were coordinated by Asst. FBI Direct Andrew McCabe, communications officer Michael Kortan; legal counsel James Baker, and likely provided by FBI lawyer Lisa Page and FBI agent Peter Strzok.  McCabe is also now saying that FBI Director James Comey was aware of what they were doing:

“Article is out, but hidden behind paywall so can’t read it,” Page texted Strzok on Oct. 24, 2016.

“Wsj? Boy that was fast,” Strzok texted back, using the initials of the famed financial newspaper. “Should I ‘find’ it and tell the team?” (link)

According to the New York Times article spin earlier this month: […] “The inspector general has concluded that Mr. McCabe authorized F.B.I. officials to provide information for that article, according to the four people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the report before it is published. The public affairs office had arranged a phone call to discuss the case, the people said. Mr. McCabe, as deputy director, had the authority to engage the news media.”

Again, the October 2016 “public affairs office” was Michael “Mike” Kortan.

IG Horowitz ultimately confronted McCabe about the leak story to Devlin Barrett via the  ‘small group’ (McCabe, Baker, Kortan, Page and Strzok) to the Wall Street Journal.

This is where McCabe was less than forthcoming about his involvement. Those misleading statements and lies by McCabe led to a referral by the Inspector General to the Office of Professional Responsibility.  The OPR recommended McCabe firing, AG Jeff Sessions fired him.

Worth noting – Mike Kortan is the same FBI official who released the previous unauthorized FBI statement about the Nunes memo: “grave concerns about material omissions of fact” etc.  A few days later Kortan was advised to resign by current FBI Director Christopher Wray.