Republican Chairman of the House Oversight Committee James Comer announced Monday that lawmakers will convene contempt hearings for FBI Director Christopher Wray later this week.
Speaking to reporters in a Capitol Hill press conference, the Kentucky representative charged the FBI with violating a congressional subpoena over an unclassified document. The FBI record purportedly implicates President Joe Biden in a $5 million-dollar bribery scheme with a “foreign national” from Biden’s time in the Obama administration.
“Anything short of producing these documents to the House Oversight Committee is not in compliance with the subpoena,” Comer warned last week.
The House Oversight chairman viewed the document in a secure SCIF at the Capitol on Monday after agency officials initially refused and demanded lawmakers travel to the FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue.
“FBI officials confirmed that the unclassified FBI generated record has not been disproven and is currently being used in an ongoing investigation,” Comer said Monday. “At the briefing, the FBI again refused to hand over the unclassified record to the custody of the House Oversight Committee, and we will now initiate contempt of Congress hearings this Thursday.”
Comer noted the document “appears” to be used in an ongoing FBI probe “which I assume is in Delaware” and promised Congress’ own investigation is only in the “beginning” stages. Agency claims that the document can’t be released, however, are likely to be met with skepticism considering the FBI hired Igor Danchenko as an undercover informant to keep the lies around the Trump-Russia investigation quiet.
Republicans have threatened to hold Wray in contempt of Congress for weeks over the FBI chief’s refusal to hand over the requested record. Comer submitted a subpoena for the document with Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a primary watchdog of the Justice Department in the upper chamber.
“We believe the FBI possesses an unclassified internal document that includes very serious and detailed allegations implicating the current President of the United States,” Grassley wrote in May. “What we don’t know is what, if anything, the FBI has done to verify these claims or investigate further. The FBI’s recent history of botching politically charged investigations demands close congressional oversight.”
While the FBI director faces contempt charges over the document implicating the president in a bribery scheme, the agency continues to stonewall congressional requests on a pair of pipe bombs found at the DNC and RNC headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio has demanded an FBI briefing on the pipe bomb investigation multiple times. According to Kyle Seraphin, a former FBI agent who worked on the case, the agency previously tracked down the suspect’s car but has not identified the culprit. The FBI also found both bombs to be inoperable.
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan sounded the alarm Friday about the Department of Justice’s credibility in investigating the Mar-a-Lago files. In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Ohio Republican said special counsel John Durham’s report on the “failings” of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has called the current DOJ probe into question. The department is investigating a trove of classified documents and sensitive correspondence discovered at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
“The special counsel’s report serves as a stark reminder of the need for more accountability and reforms within the FBI,” Jordan insisted, noting the agency’s “documented political bias” against conservatives.
“Accordingly, as Congress conducts oversight to inform these legislative reforms, we write to ensure the Justice Department acts to preserve the integrity and impartiality of ongoing investigations from the FBI’s politicized bureaucracy,” he added.
Jordan then asked Garland to reveal whether special counsel John L. Smith, who is overseeing the Mar-a-Lago investigation, “relies on any information or material gathered exclusively by the FBI prior to the special counsel’s appointment.”
The chairman expects an explanation about those matters by June 15.
He is also seeking to arrange a briefing with the committee about issues related to Durham’s report, including any new measures “implemented to address the misconduct described” by the special counsel.
It comes as President Joe Biden also undergoes a separate DOJ investigation into classified files found at his home outside Wilmington, Delaware, and his previous office at the University of Pennsylvania’s Biden Center.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio, have fired off a letter to CIA Director Bill Burns renewing their requests for documents and phone records concerning the public statement on the Hunter Biden emails letter that was signed by 51 former intelligence community officials.
The House committees last week issued a report that revealed the October 2020 letter was perceived as being so partisan that many intelligence officers refused to sign it.
“On March 21, 2023, we wrote to you requesting documents in the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) custody relating to this statement about Hunter Biden,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter. “This statement, signed by former intelligence community officials using their official titles and emphasizing their national security credentials, suggested that public reporting about Hunter Biden’s business dealings and Biden family influence-peddling ‘ha[d] all the hallmarks of a Russian information operation.’
“We have since learned that the statement was drafted and disseminated following communications between former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell and Biden campaign adviser—now Secretary of State—Antony Blinken.”
Jordan and Turner wrote, after making a minimal production of documents May 9, “the CIA admitted that it did not perform a full and complete search of all agency records prior to that production.”
A May 12 phone conversation with House staff ended with the CIA committing to cooperate in full with the committees’ oversight.
Jordan and Turner wrote the CIA committed to:
Conducting an agency-wide search for documents and communications with each of the names of the 51 signatories to the public statement for the period Oct. 1-31, 2020.
Conducting a search for all documents and communications related to the approval of [former CIA employee] David Cariens’ memoir “Escaping Madness,” including but not limited to Cariens’ email(s) to the PCRB [Prepublication Classification Review Board] seeking approval of his work, any internal communications about the work, and any outgoing email responses from the PCRB to Cariens.
Conducting a search of all CIA phone records for the period Oct. 1-31, 2020, for any phone communications between CIA employees and any of the 51 signatories to the public statement, including but not limited to Cariens.
The lawmakers ended their May 16 letter by saying they expect all documents by May 30.
“If the CIA does not produce all responsive documents, the committees may resort to compulsory process,” Jordan and Turner wrote.
President Joe Biden and his family are at the center of an influence-peddling scheme in which they traded the patriarch’s decades of time in political offices to line their own pockets and then tried to cover up their profiteering with a myriad of complicated transactions and accounts, the House Oversight Committee confirmed during a press conference on Wednesday.
With the help of whistleblowers and congressional subpoenas, Republicans are confidently reporting that the Bidens received at least $10 million worth of diluted payments from foreign companies during and after the president’s time in the Obama White House.
These payments were diced up and transferred to a spread of Biden bank accounts within weeks of significant political action by the then-vice president in the country of the transactions’ origins.
“These complicated and seemingly unnecessary financial transactions appear to be a concerted effort to conceal the source and total amount received from the foreign companies,” the Oversight Committee’s latest memo warns.
At least nine Biden family members including the president’s son Hunter Biden, his brother James Biden, James’s wife, Hunter’s ex-girlfriend who is also his brother Beau Biden’s widow, Hunter’s ex-wife, Hunter’s current wife, and at least one grandchild and a couple of nieces and/or nephews profited from the funneling of funds.
“That’s odd,” Oversight Committee Chair James Comer said. “Most people with grandchildren, who work hard everyday, doesn’t get a wire from a foreign national or anything like that.”
The latest round of records, obtained by the Oversight Committee from four of the Bidens’ 12 apparent banks, detail yet another round of these payments — this time from China and Romania to the Bidens.
One $3 million payment came from the company of Gabriel Popoviciu, who is the subject of a criminal corruption probe in Romania, to the accounts of Biden family associate Rob Walker mere weeks after Biden, then-vice president, welcomed Romanian leaders to the White House to discuss “anti-corruption efforts” and just more than a year after Biden lectured in Romania about the threat corruption poses to national security. Those transactions were quickly funneled to Owasco (one of Hunter’s 15 companies), a Biden associate’s company, one of Hunter’s personal bank accounts, Hallie Biden, and “an unknown Biden bank account.”
The Romanian payments, the Oversight Committee alleges, further prove that the Bidens’ influence peddling operation was in full swing while Biden facilitated foreign policy discussions, especially in Eastern Europe, during the Obama administration.
The newest Romanian payment dilution strongly resembles how the Bidens appeared to use their more than a dozen companies to coordinate with Chinese nationals suspected of close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and “engage in financial deception.”
“The purpose of all these companies being created is to conceal money that the Biden family has been gaining because Joe Biden has been sitting at the upper echelon of our politics for almost five decades. That is the entire purpose here,” Rep. Byron Donalds explained on Wednesday.
These companies receiving funds from foreign nationals, the Republican asserted, serve no legitimate purpose other than enriching the president, his family, and his business associates.
“Joe Biden has no business, except his position in politics,” Donalds concluded.
“If it looks complicated and sounds complicated, it was intentionally made to be complicated so you could not follow the money,” Republican Rep. Nancy Mace added during her talking time. “What we’re trying to do today is show you how to follow the money.”
During a presidential debate in October 2020, Biden told the nation that neither he nor any of his family members profited from overseas business deals with companies connected to communist China.
“My son has not made money in terms of this thing about, what are you talking about, China. I have not had—The only guy who made money from China is this guy [Donald Trump]. He’s the only one. Nobody else has made money from China,” Biden said.
COMER: “President Biden has claimed since the 2020 election that his family has not received money from China. That was a lie in 2020 — and he continues to lie to the American people now.”
Despite the fact that the Oversight Committee has repeatedly proven Biden’s denials wrong with bank records detailing millions of dollars worth of transactions from foreign shell companies to the president’s family, the White House refuses to do anything but double down on the lie.
“House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is loudly and proudly broadcasting a press conference today to continue his long pattern of making absurd claims that President Biden has made governing decisions not in the interest of America, but of the Chinese Communist Party, using baseless claims, personal attacks, and innuendo to try to score political points,” White House spokesman Ian Sams told Fox News, after smearing the committee’s latest memo as an “absurd innuendo [that] ignores reality.”
The Oversight Committee once again rejected these claims on Wednesday and refuted them with hard evidence that several Biden family members, including Hunter, James, Hallie, an unknown “Biden,” and companies linked to the family “collectively received $1.3 million in payments” from Walker, whose company was paid millions by Chinese firm State Energy HK Limited, implicating the family in selling political favors to China.
The Biden family received the money via several bank transfers within six months of the vice president departing the Obama White House. Comer said in April that his committee still did not know who the unnamed Biden was in the China transaction because the Biden family holds so many bank accounts and LLCs.
“The Biden family needs to answer for this and the DOJ needs to get off its ass and investigate. We’ve done the work for them so that they can’t screw it up. Now, if these allegations, any of these allegations are proven true then someone with the last name Biden needs to be charged, prosecuted, and maybe spend a little time in prison,” Mace said at the conclusion of her remarks.
Last week, Republicans Sen. Chuck Grassley and Comer subpoenaed the FBI over a document they say alleges a criminal scheme between now-President Joe Biden and a “foreign national” during his years in the Obama White House.
The Oversight Committee led by Comer, who previously warned it “doesn’t look good for POTUS,” promised to continue investigating whether Biden sold out the American people to the nation’s foreign enemies to line family’s pockets.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
A federal judge on Wednesday denied Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s request for a court order to prevent the House Judiciary Committee from questioning a former prosecutor involved in the investigation of Donald Trump. Bragg, however, didn’t just lose on the merits. The court’s 25-page order eviscerated the Manhattan D.A. — and his former prosecutor, Mark Pomerantz.
Two weeks ago, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, issued a subpoena directing Pomerantz to appear before the House Judiciary Committee at 10:00 on April 20, 2023. Pomerantz was previously a special assistant district attorney before abruptly resigning because Bragg had allegedly decided not to seek criminal charges against Trump.
Bragg responded to news of the subpoena by directing Pomerantz not to provide any information about his prior work to the Judiciary Committee. He also filed a complaint in federal court against Jordan and the committee, seeking an order declaring the Pomerantz subpoena invalid. Bragg simultaneously sought entry of a temporary restraining order to freeze the subpoena pending resolution of his lawsuit.
On Wednesday, federal Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil denied Bragg’s request to stop the Judiciary Committee from questioning Pomerantz. “Mr. Pomerantz must appear for the congressional deposition. No one is above the law,” Vyskocil wrote in a transparent swipe at the New York prosecutor who hung his pathetic indictment on that platitude.
While Bragg posited that the Judiciary Committee lacked a valid legislative purpose to issue the subpoena, Vyskocil rejected that argument. Congressional committees have the constitutional authority to conduct investigations and issue subpoenas, the court explained, and the court’s role is “strictly limited to determining only whether the subpoena is ‘plainly incompetent or irrelevant’” to any legitimate committee purpose. Because Jordan and the committee identified several valid legislative purposes underlying the subpoena, the court held Bragg could not quash it.
The court also held that the “speech or debate clause,” which provides that “for any Speech or Debate in either House,” Senators and Representatives “shall not be questioned in any other Place,” likely would prevent Bragg from suing Jordan and the committee.
Vyskocil also rejected Bragg’s argument that requiring Pomerantz to submit to questioning would infringe on the attorney-client and work-product privilege the Manhattan D.A.’s office held regarding communications Pomerantz was privy to. Here, the court stressed that the indictment of Trump occurred long after Pomerantz had resigned and that any privilege that may have existed was likely waived by Pomerantz publishing his book, “People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account.”
“As its subtitle indicates, the book recounts Pomerantz’s insider insights, mental impressions, and his front row seat to the investigation and deliberative process leading up to” the Trump indictment, the court wrote. Yet Bragg did next to nothing to stop the publication of the book. Under these circumstances, “Bragg cannot seriously claim that any information already published in Pomerantz’s book and discussed on prime-time television in front of millions of people is protected from disclosure,” the court concluded.
It Gets Better
The court’s conclusion, however, wasn’t the highlight of the decision. Rather it was Vyskocil’s summary of how the country arrived at a place where it sees a state prosecutor filing a complaint in federal court against the House Judiciary Committee that includes 35 pages and a vast majority of exhibits that “are nothing short of a public relations tirade against former President and current presidential candidate Donald Trump.”
That descriptor alone should give pause to anyone still believing Bragg’s indictment of Trump was righteous. But the opinion highlighted many more facts that confirm the targeting of Trump was a witch hunt.
For instance, it included many excerpts from Pomerantz’s book showing the criminal charges against Trump were ridiculous. So-called “hush money” payments to Stormy Daniels “did not amount to much in legal terms,” Pomerantz wrote. “Paying hush money is not a crime under New York State law, even if the payment was made to help an electoral candidate.”
The book excerpts quoted by the court included numerous additional problems Pomerantz saw with the legal theory Bragg eventually relied upon in charging Trump. Trump and his legal team have been highlighting these same many flaws. And now a federal judge just told the country that the “very experienced, sophisticated, and extremely capable attorney” Pomerantz — who had wanted to charge Trump — agreed with all (or most) of Trump’s legal arguments.
The court also noted that Pomerantz was a “pro bono” attorney for the Manhattan D.A.’s office. This should strike the public as strange, especially in light of the well-heeled credentials the opinion highlighted: his clerkship at the Supreme Court, his work as a federal prosecutor, and his many years as a criminal defense attorney and partner at the prominent New York City law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.
While the court omitted any mention of Paul, Weiss’ connections to the Biden administration and Democrats, referring to Pomerantz’s “pro bono” status should raise some red flags.
If not, Vyskocil was more explicit elsewhere in the opinion, such as when she said she was “unmoved by Bragg’s purported concern at the prospect of ‘inject[ing] partisan passions into a forum where they do not belong.’”
“By bringing this action, Bragg is engaging in precisely the type of political theater he claims to fear,” the court wrote.
Beyond chastising Bragg for playing politics, Vyskocil rebuked him for his legal arguments, most devastatingly when Bragg argued the court should quash the subpoena of Pomerantz to ensure the grand jury’s secrecy.
“The secrecy of the grand jury proceedings in the pending criminal case was compromised before the indictment was even announced,” Vyskocil countered, citing CNN’s coverage of the charges against Trump based on leaks.
The court also unleashed a few zingers on Pomerantz. While Pomerantz complains he is in a “legally untenable position” because he will be forced to make a choice between “legal or ethical consequences” or “potential criminal and disciplinary exposure,” the court “notes that Pomerantz is in this situation because he decided to inject himself into the public debate by authoring a book that he has described as ‘appropriate and in the public interest.’”
And in response to Pomerantz making “it abundantly clear that he will seek to comply with Bragg’s instructions” not to respond to the subpoena, the court remarked that Pomerantz “claimed deference to the District Attorney’s command is a surprising about-face, particularly given that Pomerantz previously declined the District Attorney’s request to review his book manuscript before publication.”
What Next?
Those already well-versed in the outrageousness of the indictment will take delight in the court’s ripostes. The question remains, however, whether the opinion’s detailed summary of the flaws in Bragg’s legal theory — as identified by Pomerantz himself — will convince the remainder of the country that the indictment is a sham. Or will they discard Vyskocil’s decision as a Trump-appointee diatribe?
Maybe it will take the Judiciary Committee questioning Pomerantz on those precise weaknesses for the unconvinced to realize that once again Trump is right — it is a witch hunt.
We should know soon whether the questioning will go forward and whether Pomerantz will respond to the questions or follow Bragg’s directive. But if the latter, both Bragg and Pomerantz will find themselves back in front of Vyskocil because the Trump appointee wisely ruled that any future disputes related to the Pomerantz subpoena or other subpoenas related to the Judiciary Committee’s inquiry must be filed in the same case mater.
Vyskocil’s devastating conclusion likely caused Bragg as much heartache as her denial of his motion to declare the subpoena of Pomerantz invalid. For Bragg knows that absent reversal by the Second Circuit, the same outcome awaits further challenges of the House Judiciary Committee’s subpoena power.
Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
Most committee hearings flounder because politicians waste time grandstanding, but lawmakers shouldn’t squander the chance to ask insightful questions of the ‘Twitter Files’ witnesses.
Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger testify on Thursday before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Little they say will be new, yet because corporate media have refused to cover the story, many Americans remain ignorant about the massive scandals Taibbi, Shellenberger, and the other independent journalists have revealed over the last three months in the “Twitter Files.”
Here’s what the House committee must do to break the cone of silence.
Introduce Taibbi and Shellenberger to Americans
Most Americans know little about Taibbi and Shellenberger, allowing the left to execute its go-to play when faced with inconvenient facts: call the messengers members of a right-wing conspiracy. The House’s weaponization committee should thus ensure the public knows neither Taibbi nor Shellenberger can be written off as conservative conspirators, much less “ultra MAGA.”
Hopefully, the two witnesses for the majority party will ensure their opening statements detail their non-conservative “credentials” — something Taibbi has attempted to do on Twitter, writing: “I’m pro-choice and didn’t vote for Trump,” and noting he is an independent.
Taibbi’s work covering politics for Rolling Stone and his “incisive, bilious takedowns of Wall Street,” as well as past appearances on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC, and his work with Keith Olbermann, are the non-conservative credentials Americans need to hear.
Shellenberger’s biography likewise confirms he is no right-winger or Trump surrogate. Time Magazine named him “Hero of the Environment.” “In the 1990s, Shellenberger helped save California’s last unprotected ancient redwood forest, inspire Nike to improve factory conditions, and advocate for decriminalization and harm reduction policies,” his webpage reads — details helpful to highlight for the listening public.
If Taibbi and Shellenberger’s prepared testimony omits these and other details, Chair Jim Jordan should open the hearing by asking the witnesses to share with the country their political and policy perspectives and then push them on why all Americans should care about the “Twitter Files.”
Here, the committee and its witnesses need to remind Americans of the importance of free speech and that the silencing of speech harms the country, even when it is not the government acting as the censor. (In fact, I would argue it is precisely because our country has lost a sense of the importance of free speech that the government successfully outsourced censorship to Twitter.)
Guide Them So They Tell a Coherent Story
Next, the questioning will begin. Unfortunately, here’s where most committee hearings flounder because politicians prefer to pontificate than pose insightful questions to their witnesses. But in the case of the “Twitter Files,” Republicans can do both because the witnesses have already provided detailed answers to much of what the country needs to know in the nearly 20 installments they published over the last several months.
Thus the goal of the committee should be to provide a platform that allows the witnesses to tell the story of the scandals uncovered. Ideally, then, committee members will lead the witnesses through their testimony as if each question represents the opening paragraph of a chapter, with Taibbi and Shellenberger given the floor to provide the details.
Start at the Beginning, the Best Place to Start
Committee members will all want to focus on the most shocking discoveries, such as the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story and the government’s demands to silence unapproved Covid messages. But those events merely represent symptoms of the diseased state of free speech Taibbi and Shellenberger uncovered, and the latter represents the real threat to our country.
Democrats, independents, and apolitical Americans will also be inclined to immediately write off the hearings as political theater if Republicans immediately flip to the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and Covid messaging. Both are important parts of the story, but Americans first need to understand the context.
Begin there: After Elon Musk purchased Twitter, he provided Taibbi, Shellenberger, and other independent journalists access to internal communications. What communications were accessible? What types of emails did the journalists review? How many? What else remains to explore?
Buckets of Scandals
The story will quickly progress from there, but how?
While the committee could walk Taibbi and Shellenberger through each of their individual “Twitter Files” reports, the better approach would be to bucket the scandals because each thread the journalists wrote included details that overlapped with earlier (and later) revelations.
Remember: The scandals are not merely the “events,” such as the blocking of the New York Post’s coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story. Rather, they go back to first principles — in this case, the value of free speech.
Twitter’s Huge Censorship Toolbox
Moving next to what Taibbi called Twitter’s “huge toolbox for controlling the visibility of any user,” the House committee should ask the witnesses to expand on those tools, which include “Search Blacklist,” “Trends Blacklist,” “Do Not Amplify” settings, limits on hashtag searches, and more.
What were those tools? How often were they used and why? Did complaints from the government or other organizations ever prompt Twitter to use those visibility filters? Were official government accounts ever subjected to the filters? If so, why?
Twitter-Government Coordination
The natural next chapter will focus on any coordination between Twitter and the government. Again, the “Twitter Files” exposed the breadth and depth of government interaction with the tech giant — from FBI offices all over the country contacting Twitter about problematic accounts to, as Taibbi wrote, Twitter “taking requests from every conceivable government agency, from state officials in Wyoming, Georgia, Minnesota, Connecticut, California, and others to the NSA, FBI, DHS, DOD, DOJ, and many others.”
Internal communications also showed the CIA — referred to under the euphemism “Other Government Agencies” in the emails — working closely with Twitter as well. Other emails showed Twitter allowed the Department of Defense to run covert propaganda operations, “whitelisting” Pentagon accounts to prevent the covert accounts from being banned. The multi-agency Global Engagement Center, housed in the Department of State, also played a large part in the government’s efforts to prompt the censorship of speech.
Both the Biden and Trump administrations reached out to Twitter as well, seeking the removal of various posts, as did other individual politicians, such as Rep. Adam Schiff and Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
To keep the conversation coherent, the committee should catalog the various government agencies, centers, and individuals revealed in the “Twitter Files” and ask the witnesses how these government-connected individuals or organizations communicated with Twitter, how they pressured Twitter, the types of requests they made, and their success.
The “Twitter Files” detailed censorship requests numbering in the tens of thousands from the government. Asking the witnesses to expand on those requests and how individual Americans responded when they learned they were supposedly Russian bots or Indian trolls will make the scandal more personal.
Non-Governmental Organizations
Questioning should then proceed to the non-governmental organizations connected to Twitter’s censorship efforts. Again, the committee should first provide a quick synopsis of the revelations from the “Twitter Files,” highlighting the involvement of various nonprofits and academic institutions in the “disinformation” project, including the Election Integrity Partnership, Alliance Securing Democracy (which hosted the Hamilton 68 platform), the Atlantic Council’s Center for Internet Security, and Clemson University.
What role did these organizations play? Have you reviewed all of the communications related to these groups? Were there other non-governmental organizations communicating with Twitter? How much influence did these groups have?
Disinformation About Disinformation
The story should continue next with testimony about the validity of the various disinformation claims peddled to Twitter. Internal communications showed Twitter insiders knew the Hamilton 68 dashboard’s methodology was flawed. Other emails indicated Twitter experts found the claims of Russian disinformation coming from Clemson, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab, and the Global Engagement Center questionable.
Highlighting these facts and then asking the witnesses to elaborate on the revelations, organization by organization, will advance the story for the public.
Funding Sources
Next up should be the funding of those organizations, which came from government grants and often the same few private organizations. Here the Committee should ask Taibbi the status of his research on the financing of these organizations — something the journalist indicated last month he is delving into.
Taibbi also suggested the Global Engagement Center’s funding should be looked at in the next budget. Why? What should the House know before it makes future budget decisions?
Connecting the Censorship Complex Dots
After these details have been discussed, the committee should connect the dots as Taibbi did when he wrote: “What most people think of as the ‘deep state’ is really a tangled collaboration of state agencies, private contractors and (sometimes state-funded) NGOs. The lines become so blurred as to be meaningless.”
Read that quote — and other powerful ones from either the emails or the journalists covering the story — to the witnesses. Hopefully, staffers already have the best quotes blown up and ready for tomorrow.
Can you explain what you mean, here, Mr. Taibbi? What “state agencies”? What NGOs? Mr. Shellenberger, do you agree? What governmental or non-governmental players did you see involved?
What Was the Media’s Role?
Asking the witnesses about the media’s involvement will then close the circle on the big picture, which is ironic given the press’s role in circular reporting — something even Twitter recognized. Hamilton 68 or the Global Engagement Center would announce Russian disinformation and peddle it to the press, Twitter, and politicians. Then when Twitter’s review found the accounts not concerning, politicians would rely on the press’s coverage to bolster the claims of disinformation and pressure Twitter to respond. And even when Twitter told the reporters (and politicians) the disinformation methodologies were lacking, the media persisted in regurgitating claims of Russian disinformation.
Can you explain how the press responded when Twitter told reporters to be cautious of the Hamilton 68 database? What precisely did Twitter say? Did you find similar warnings to the media about the Global Engagement Center’s data?
Specific Instances of Censorship
Then the committee should focus on specific instances of censorship, with the Hunter Biden laptop story and Covid debates deserving top billing.
While Republicans care most about the censorship of the laptop story, this committee hearing is not the place to put the Biden family’s pay-to-play scandals on trial. Rather, Americans need to understand four key takeaways: The laptop was real, the FBI knew it was real, the FBI’s warnings to Twitter and other tech giants prompted censorship of the Post’s reporting, and the legacy media were complicit in silencing the story. Having the witnesses explain why Twitter censored the story with the goal of conveying those points will be key.
However, highlighting the censorship of Covid debates offers a better opportunity to cross the political divide of the country and to convince Americans that the hand-in-glove relationship between media and government threatens everyone’s speech. Stressing that both the Trump and Biden administrations pushed Twitter to censor Covid-related speech will also bolster that point.
The committee should start by summarizing the various Covid topics considered verboten — the virus’ origins, vaccines, natural immunity, masking, school closings — and then stress that the science now indicates the speech silenced was correct. Highlighting specific tweets that were blocked and medical professionals who were axed from the platform, while asking the witnesses to explain how this happened, will show the public the real-world implications of a Censorship Complex governing debate in America.
Where Do We Go from Here?
The committee should close by giving Taibbi and Shellenberger the floor, asking: “Where do we go from here?”
The “Twitter Files” revealed that the government and its allies did not limit their efforts to Twitter but pushed censorship at other platforms, and also that a new “cottage industry” in disinformation has already launched. How do Americans know they are hearing the truth? How do we know the government is not manipulating or censoring the truth?
Furthermore, if the same Censorship Complex that limits speech on social media succeeds in canceling alternative news outlets, and if the legacy media won’t provide a check on the government, how do we preserve our constitutional republic?
That last question is not for tomorrow’s witnesses, however. It is for every American.
Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is planning a series of training sessions for House Republican committee staffers in what’s viewed as the party’s next step to prepare for post-midterm investigations. McCarthy and House Administration Committee ranking member Rep. Rodney Davis of Illinois sent an email Tuesday morning to staffers inviting them to the upcoming sessions, dubbed “informational briefing(s).” The email, obtained by the Daily Caller, is titled “Oversight Education Series: Investigations 101” and the briefings are designed to ready House committee staffers for conducting oversight, a person familiar with the House Republicans’ plans explained to the Caller.
“Leader Kevin McCarthy and Ranking Member Rodney Davis would like to invite you to attend this informational briefing with Jon Skladany, Chief Oversight Counsel for the Committee on Financial Services, and Rachel Kaldahl, Republican Staff Director for the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight,” the email reads. “This briefing will review the basics of performing effective oversight investigations and will highlight best practices to fulfill Congress’s Constitutional oversight obligations.”
The first “Investigations 101” briefing is slated for the afternoon of July 22, according to the email. McCarthy will also host a second briefing Sept. 8 and a third Sept. 26.
The GOP has a long list of oversight investigation topics should they take over the House post-midterms, the person familiar with Republicans’ plans said. The investigations list, the Caller previously reported, includes border policies implemented under the Biden administration, the origins of COVID-19, and the administration’s reaction in testing, opening schools, and its dismissal of natural immunity. The person familiar with Republicans’ plans also said the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract at the Department of Defense (DOD) is on the investigations list.
Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, arrives with wife Melissa Cohen Biden prior to President Biden awarding Presidential Medals of Freedom during a ceremony in the East Room at the White House in Washington, U.S., July 7, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Republican lawmakers have been outspoken on their plans to investigate some of these topics. McCarthy, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan and Kentucky Rep. James Comer wrote an op-ed published July 1 by the New York Post about investigating Hunter Biden. Comer and Jordan would play leading roles in any investigations of the Biden administration, since they are slated to head the Oversight and Judiciary committees, respectively.
Republicans have already sent “hundreds of preservation notices throughout different parts of the Biden Administration,” the person familiar with the plans said. These preservation notices serve as a request that various documents relevant to a case be preserved, and some have been publicly touted by the party in recent months.
“We’re just laying the groundwork now, we’re going to keep sending our letters. I would imagine at some point … those letters are repackaged and we say, ‘Hey, you did not respond to this request we sent you six months ago. We expect you to turn over these documents,’” the Republican Oversight Committee aide told the Caller.
“We’re just getting ready. We keep conducting oversight … We’ll be ready to roll in January with several investigations already prepared to go,” the aide added.
Preservation letters and informational briefings appear to be just the start in the GOP’s prep for an anticipated House takeover. A senior Republican aide told the Caller that preparation for the majority will likely “kick into full gear once August recess rolls around.”
“It’s expected that House Republicans will flood the Biden Administration with [more] preservation notices and requests that will help jump-start GOP investigations come 2023,” this senior aide said, specifying that there will be “way, way more” preservation notices in the near future.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick Garland are two cabinet officials that Republicans are honing in on for impeachment, according to the senior aide. Axios reported in April on the initial plan to impeach Mayorkas, noting at the time that “many committee members” support the move. Meanwhile, Jordan has not publicly ruled out trying to impeach Mayorkas, The Washington Free Beacon reported Monday.
“That’ll be a decision that will be made by the entire conference,” Jordan told the Free Beacon.
As Republicans lay the groundwork for a flood of investigations, the Biden administration is also reportedly busy prepping their defense, according to an article published by The Washington Post in April. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller.
“Senior officials have begun strategizing on how various White House departments, especially the counsel’s office, may be restructured to respond to an onslaught of investigative requests if Democrats lose control of the House or the Senate in November’s midterm elections, as many in both parties expect,” The Washington Post reported.
The White House has also brought on new staffers recently in the hopes that they’ll aid in responding to the various GOP probes, according to The Washington Post. Some of these staffers, like President Joe Biden’s current senior adviser, Anita Dunn, are well known to the president.
“White House officials say their preparations are hardly surprising, given the Democrats’ narrow majorities in Congress and the uncertain outcome of the midterm elections,” The Washington Post reported. “Biden officials also said the White House Counsel’s Office had been structured to respond to Republican oversight efforts from the beginning.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he would pull every Republican member from the House Select Committee to look into the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi rejected the recommendations of Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan and Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, two sources familiar told the Daily Caller.
Pelosi released a Wednesday statement two days after McCarthy selected a group of five Republicans to serve on the House Select Committee. McCarthy’s Republican picks include Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, Illinois Rep. Rodney Davis, North Dakota Rep. Kelly Armstrong and Texas Rep. Troy Nehls.
“Monday evening, the Minority Leader recommended 5 Members to serve on the Select Committee. I have spoken with him this morning about the objections raised about Representatives Jim Banks and Jim Jordan and the impact their appointments may have on the integrity of the investigation. I also informed him that I was prepared to appoint Representatives Rodney Davis, Kelly Armstrong and Troy Nehls, and requested that he recommend two other Members,”Pelosi said in the statement.
“With respect for the integrity of the investigation, with an insistence on the truth and with concern about statements made and actions taken by these Members, I must reject the recommendations of Representatives Banks and Jordan to the Select Committee. The unprecedented nature of January 6th demands this unprecedented decision,” Pelosi added.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks at a press conference on the INVEST in America Act on June 30, 2021 in Washington, DC. The act directs federal funding into repairing roads and bridges and improving transit systems around the country. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Pelosi announced in late June that she would be establishing the select committee. The House then approved a resolution to form the committee weeks after Senate Republicans killed a bipartisan commission in late May. The House Select Committee announced it will hold its first hearing July 27. The resolution authorized Pelosi to select eight members to serve on the committee and McCarthy to select five. The resolution ended up passing in the House 222 to 190, with two Republicans joining all Democrats in voting in favor. Those two Republicans were Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger and Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney.
Pelosi picked her panelists. One of them is Cheney.
Pelosi also selected Democratic Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, California Rep. Adam Schiff, Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, California Rep. Pete Aguilar, Virginia Rep. Elaine Luria and Florida Rep. Stephanie Murphy.
McCarthy announced his opposition to a Jan. 6 commission in May. McCarthy has said he would like the commission to investigate violence committed by Black Lives Matter and Antifa throughout the summer of 2020, as well as the Capitol riot.
“Putting Adam Schiff and Raskin on it looks more like an impeachment committee than one that wants to get to the bottom of the questions that are still out there,” McCarthy said in an interview with Fox News.
Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan is demanding answers from Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas regarding how the Biden administration is enforcing federal law in Portland, Oregon, according to two letters obtained by the Daily Caller.
The letters, sent Monday, note that “anarchists and violent left-wing extremists continue to vandalize and destroy federal property in Portland.” The city experienced over one hundred days of consecutive unrest following the death of George Floyd in May 2020 and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was recently forced to re-install fencing around the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse just days after it was removed due to attacks on the building.
Jordan cited journalist Andy Ngo’s February 2021 testimony in front of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security in both letters. He noted that Ngo testified about “antifa and left-wing anarchists” developing “a riot apparatus that included streams of funding for accommodation, travel, riot gear, and weapons, which resulted in a murder, hundreds of arson attacks, mass injuries, and mass property destruction.”
In the letter to Mayorkas, the Ohio lawmaker requested an explanation on what the DHS or the Federal Protective Service (FPS) is doing “to protect federal personnel and federal property”in the city. The letter also asked for explanation on what is being done to prevent further destruction to federal property as well as whether the DHS “still believes that it has the authority, the mission, and the intent to enforce federal law and protect federal property in Portland.”
“The Biden administration has a duty to ensure federal law is enforced and that both federal property and federal personnel are protected and kept safe from violent extremists in Portland,” Jordan wrote in both letters.
Jordan’s letter to Garland focused on the Department of Justice (DOJ) and asked for information regarding efforts surrounding identifying and prosecuting individuals responsible for the attacks on federal property and law enforcement. He also requested transparency with the DOJ’s plans to prevent further attacks, asked for clarification on whether the department still blames the city for allowing the unrest and wondered whether it stands by its previous characterization of “peaceful protesters.”
Former Attorney General William Barr said in 2020 that “peaceful protesters do not throw explosives into federal courthouses, tear down plywood with crowbars, or launch fecal matter at federal officers,” according to Jordan’s letter. The DOJ named Portland as one of the cities that has “permitted violence and destruction of property to persist”in Sept. 2020.
Jordan gave Garland and Mayorkas until 5:00 p.m. on April 12, 2021 to respond to the letters. The letters come amid continued unrest in Portland, Oregon.
The city approved cuts to its police department in 2020 and the current cost of repairs to various federal buildings in the city reportedly sits at around $2.3 million, Jordan noted.
Neither Garland nor Mayorkas’s offices immediately responded to a request for comment from the Daily Caller. Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jerry Nadler, who was included on both letters, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Denouncing partisan hypocrisy, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio slammed Democrats on Wednesday for their use of a double standard when it comes to objecting to an election.
Jordan spoke as the House moved forward with the process of impeaching President Donald Trump, citing last week’s Capitol incursion and Trump’s words and action before, during and after the violence. Jordan is among the Republicans opposing impeachment, which is likely to pass the House. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said impeachment is unlikely to make it on the Senate calendar until after Trump’s term in office has ended.
Jordan said that Republicans who last week wanted to voice objections to the Electoral College vote that gave President-elect Joe Biden his victory were only doing something Democrats have done before.
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“In his opening remarks, the Democrat chair of the Rules Committee said that Republicans last week voted to overturn the results of an election. Guess who the first objector was on Jan. 6, 2017? First objector: the Democrat chairman of the Rules Committee,” Jordan said, referring to Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts.
“And guess which state he objected to? Alabama. The very first state called. Alabama. President Trump, I think, won Alabama by like 80 points,” Jordan said, before consulting notes and saying that Trump in fact won the state by 30 points.
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
Trump defense team member and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan reacts to House managers’ arguments during trial. House Freedom Caucus member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio., offered his assessment of President Trump’s Senate impeachment trial during a Thursday appearance on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”
Jordan said Lead Impeachment Manager Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is not proving Trump guilty of any crime, or any act that rises to the level of an impeachable offense, or one that would warrant his expulsion from office. He added that the case laid out by Schiff and his team amounts to little more than “assumptions, presumptions and hearsay.”
“They don’t have the facts,” he said. “They make things up. Frankly, it should not surprise us. Adam Schiff is the guy who told us for two years, ‘I have more than circumstantial evidence that President Trump worked with Russia to influence the election’. That was not true.”
He said Schiff has not been entirely forthright or accurate with details of the case. He said Schiff declared that a relevant 2016 FISA court process was adequate — but Inspector General Michael Horowitz ruled otherwise.
“Mr. Horowitz told us they lied to the FISA courts 17 times,“ Jordan said.
“Adam Schiff [also] said we would hear from the whistleblower.” To date, that has not happened.
“The facts are solidly on the president’s side,” he continued. “The Constitutional principles is on the president’s side and the unfair process is another great argument the White House can make because what they did in the House [impeachment inquiry] was very unfair to the president.”
Earlier Thursday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., accused Trump of placing his own personal interests above national security and American democracy and charged that Trump was the only president in history to violate his oath of office so flagrantly.
“No president has ever used his office to compel a foreign nation to help him cheat in our elections. Prior presidents would be shocked to the core by such conduct and rightly so,” Nadler said in kicking off Day 3 of the trial.
“This conduct is not ‘America First,’”Nadler said, referring to one of Trump’s campaign themes. “It is Donald Trump first.”
Fox News’ Marisa Schultz contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 22: U.S. President Donald Trump (C) shakes hands with James Comey, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), during an Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception in the Blue Room of the White House on January 22, 2017 in Washington, DC. Trump today … Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images
The Department of Justice (DOJ) inspector general (IG) released his report, which found that the FBI had an authorized “purpose” to investigate the 2016 Trump campaign; however, the agency committed a series of wrongdoings in the process.
The IG report found that the FBI made “significant inaccuracies and omissions” in the agency’s applications to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, stating agents “failed to meet the basic obligation” to make sure their applications were accurate.
We do not speculate whether the correction of any particular misstatement or omissions, or some combination thereof, would have resulted in a different outcome. Nevertheless, the department’s decision-makers and the court should have been given complete and accurate information so that they could meaningfully evaluate probable cause before authorizing the surveillance of a US person associated with a presidential campaign.
House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jordan said that this report revealed that the FBI spied on more people than previously known as part of its investigation into the Trump campaign.
Jordan said in a statement Monday:
We thought they spied on two Americans, we now know it was four. The Inspector General’s report confirms what many of us feared: James Comey’s FBI ignored guidelines and rules in spying on President Trump’s campaign in 2016. We now know that within one week of the investigation opening, the FBI was surveilling the campaign and four specific individuals associated with it.
“The U.S. government’s powerful tools designed and authorized for international intelligence gathering were deployed to monitor the activities of a Presidential campaign,” Jordan added. “This is a grave matter that should deeply trouble Americans of all political stripes. There are many lingering questions and I expect both Chairman Nadler and Chairwoman Maloney to convene hearings with Inspector General Horowitz as soon as possible.”
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
A coalition of more than 100 conservatives sent a letter to House Freedom Caucus co-founder Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio on Monday urging him to throw his name in to replace outgoing Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.
“There must be a real race for Speaker of the House. Now. No backroom deals. A real race, starting this spring, to make every incumbent and candidate commit on the record, as a campaign issue, whether they’ll vote to save the Swamp or drain it,” the letter reads. “America needs you to declare yourself as a candidate for Speaker at once. We write to you on behalf of millions of Americans who want Congress to Drain the Swamp.”
Ryan rattled Capitol Hill in April when he announced he will retire from the House after nearly 20 years in Congress, telling reporters he wanted to spend more time with his family and pursue other opportunities.
Two of the top House Republicans — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana — are angling for the position, but neither are thought to have a guaranteed lock on the speakership.
McCarthy failed to garner the 218 required votes to become speaker in 2015, but his particularly close relationship with the president has some expecting that, along with Ryan’s full-fledged endorsement, it will give him an upper hand over Scalise in the coming months.
Scalise wouldn’t rule out a potential bid for Ryan’s job but is also adamant he would not run against McCarthy, who he considers a “good friend,” he said in March.
Yet, House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, who is best friends with Jordan, might have the closest relationship with the president over any other member of Congress. During a speech Thursday in which Jordan appeared to preview a bid for the speakership, Jordan joked that Meadows was in the back, taking a phone call from the president, which Meadows is known to do on a regular basis.
The letter Jordan received Monday from conservatives echoes a great deal of what the congressman has said himself since Ryan announced his retirement. Namely, Jordan is adamant that Republicans need to get back to accomplishing what they promised voters during the 2016 election cycle, like dealing with immigration and border security, repealing and replacing Obamacare, and stopping out-of-control spending.
Jordan’s response to questions about the speaker’s race have been the same since the day TheDCNF first reported the growing wave of support for his candidacy: There is no speaker’s race, and conservatives need to focus on the issues.
Conservatives are pushing back against Jordan’s assertion that there isn’t an ongoing race to replace Ryan.
“To those who say there is no Speaker’s race at the moment, we say that it’s already underway — in back rooms, behind closed doors, and aimed at preserving the Swamp and making it bigger. The Speaker’s race must be public. There will be no Republican Speaker in 2019 unless the GOP can appeal to those Americans in its own ranks, among independents and even many Democrats who voted for Donald Trump to drain the Swamp and for the current Republican-led House to help him do that,” the letter reads.
“The present House Republican leadership has failed. It is part of the problem. You are the solution. This is your moment. We pray you will seize it, knowing that if you do, we will do everything we can to help you succeed.”
The HFC is no stranger to putting leadership on notice. Jordan, Meadows and HFC members shot down a farm bill in order to secure a vote on an immigration proposal they were promised months ago. Ryan and McCarthy huddled with Meadows and Jordan in the back of the House chamber before the final gavel Friday, but their 11th-hour attempts were unable to sway the conservative members. The bill failed with members voting 198-213, dealing a decisive blow to leadership.
Friday’s vote is evidence the HFC has the leverage to sway major policy issues, given the power of the caucus’ 36 members’ votes. If the caucus votes as a coalition, they can kill a bill or get concessions from leadership.
Many believe Jordan’s bid would be to get concessions from either McCarthy or Scalise, but Ryan still has the rest of the year as speaker, assuming he isn’t pressured to step down earlier.
McCarthy’s folks are reportedly nervous about the potential heat he will take in a drawn-out speaker’s race if Ryan decides to stay through the November midterm elections, which he has promised he intends to do.
A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience.
An internal FBI document shows that the testimony given by Andrew McCabe about leaking to the Washington Post is diametrically opposed to testimony given by James Comey.
It’s a safe bet that one of them is lying. If it turns out to be McCabe, which is likely, he doesn’t need to worry about his pension as much as he should be worrying about prison. McCabe had testified that he had told Comey about the release but when Comey was questioned, he denied that McCabe ever told him about it.
Former FBI Director James Comey told internal investigators at the Justice Department that he could not recall McCabe telling him about having authorized FBI officials to talk to a reporter about an ongoing investigation, the sources said.
Comey’s comments to the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office, which were later included as part of the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility report on McCabe that prompted his firing earlier this month, put him at odds with the statements McCabe has made about authorizing FBI officials to provide information to the Wall Street Journal in an October 2016 story about FBI and Justice Department tensions over an ongoing investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
McCabe has publicly maintained that he was in a position to authorize the other FBI officials speaking with the reporter and that Comey was aware McCabe had done it.
McCabe and his lawyer both argue that they didn’t lie to Comey and that Comey’s memory just wasn’t that good. But Jim Jordan blasted that by pointing out that McCabe lied four times about not authorizing the leak:
JORDAN: “McCabe didn’t lie just once, he lied four times. He lied to James Comey. He lied to the Office of Professional Responsibility and he lied twice under oath to the Inspector General.”
“Remember, this is Andrew McCabe, Deputy Director of the FBI. This is Andrew McCabe, the text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page talking about Andy’s office, the meeting where they talk about the insurance policy in case Donald Trump is actually President of the United States… Four times he lied about leaking information to the Wall Street Journal.”
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