FBI Deputy Director McCabe "Retiring" After "Trump Insurance Policy" Debacle

Just hours after the FBI’s top lawyer, James Baker, was reassigned, WaPo reports that FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe will retire in a few months - once he becomes fully eligible for pension benefits.

McCabe, who has been the target of Republican critics for more than a year, spent hours in Congress this past week, facing questions behind closed doors from members of three committees.

Republicans said they were dissatisfied with his answers:

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), has called for McCabe’s ouster, saying he “ought to go for reasons of being involved in some of the things that took place in the previous administration. We want to make sure that there’s not undue political influence within the FBI — the [Justice] Department and the FBI.”

Democrats called it a partisan hounding:

Democrats emerging from Thursday’s questioning of McCabe urged him to resist Republicans’ calls to step down, saying the GOP’s new focus on McCabe smells of political opportunism. “Mr. McCabe should in no way be fired by biased political commentary,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.).

But whichever it was, The Washington Post reports, according to people familiar with the matter, McCabe plans to retire in a few months when he becomes fully eligible for pension benefits.

As a reminder, McCabe was former director James B. Comey’s right-hand man, a position that involved him in most of the FBI’s actions that vex President Trump as well as the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, a matter that still riles Democrats.

McCabe won’t become eligible for his full pension until early March. People close to him say he plans to retire as soon as he hits that mark.

“He’s got about 90 days, and some of that will be holiday time. He can make it,’’ said one.

A spokesman for McCabe declined to comment, as did an FBI spokesman.

There is good reason to question McCabe"s perspective and un-biasedness...

His wife, a Democratic candidate for a Virginia Senate seat in 2015, had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from the political action committee led by a close ally of the Clintons. He had also been part of discussions with Justice Department officials that critics said prevented FBI agents from more aggressively pursuing their investigation of the Clinton Foundation. Agents were trying to determine if donations to the foundation were made with an expectation of government favors from Clinton or her allies.

 

After reports about those issues surfaced in October 2016, then-candidate Trump singled out McCabe for criticism, and congressional Republicans demanded detailed answers from the FBI about his role in the Clinton probes — questions they insist remain unanswered.

 

McCabe’s role is being examined by the Justice Department’s inspector general, who has said a report on how the Clinton probe was handled should be finished by spring.

 

Republicans are also focusing on the FBI’s relationship with the author of a dossier containing allegations against Trump. The bureau offered to pay the author of that document after the election to keep pursuing leads and information, but the agreement was never finalized, The Washington Post reported earlier this year.

 

And most recently, one of his senior advisers, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, had exchanged numerous pro-Clinton and anti-Trump text messages with Peter Strzok, the top FBI agent on Mueller’s probe. Strzok was removed by Mueller when he learned of their communications; Page had left the Mueller team two weeks earlier for what officials said were unrelated reasons. In one text, Strzok texted that he thought Clinton should win “100,000,000-0.’’

 

More problematic for McCabe is a text in which Page told Strzok, “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.’’

 

Republican lawmakers have seized on that text as evidence Strzok, Page, and possibly McCabe were involved in an effort to somehow ensure Trump would not win the election. But people familiar with the exchange said the officials were debating how overtly they should begin investigating Trump, and that one of the factors they considered was the likelihood Trump could win the presidency - which they considered small.

 

Even that explanation presents a headache for McCabe because it places a conversation in his office about how the expected election outcome should or should not affect the FBI’s investigative decisions.

But apart from that.. he is a great guy, according to his former boss James Comey took to the Twitter to defend him and his lackey James Baker today...

"Sadly, we are now at a point in our political life when anyone can be attacked for partisan gain."

With The FBI"s reputation in tatters (and former FBI Director claiming that anything that exposes corruption or bias is off-limits, "for partisan gain"), it appears FBI Director Christopher Wray may be - just maybe - starting to clean house as first Baker and McCabe (following Peter Strzok"s and Bruce Ohr"s reassignment) are thrown under the bus, perhaps in an effort to appease those looking for Mueller blood.

Meanwhile, Trump predictably wasted no time to lash out at the FBI asking "How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leakin’ James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wife’s campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation?"

How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leakin’ James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wife’s campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2017

Followed up by "FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!"

FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2017

Trump Wins: Judge Denies Obama Holdover"s Suit Against Mulvaney Running CFPB

In a somewhat unsurprising decision, President Trump won a legal fight over who gets to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (at least for now).

As Bloomberg reports, Trump"s budget director Mick Mulvaney can remain as temporary head of the agency, a federal judge ruled in rejecting a request to block the move fromLeandra English, who was named to the role by the departing director.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly in Washington rebuffed English, who sued to Nov. 26, contending she is entitled to the provisional post.

Kelly, who has been on the bench since only September, is a Trump nominee who previously worked for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, and also served as a federal prosecutor.

The judge’s ruling came after hearing from both sides Tuesday.

 

A day earlier, attorneys for English and the Justice Department had spent about 40 minutes trying to persuade him.

 

Joining the fight on English’s behalf were about two dozen current and former members of Congress who told Kelly the president’s choice of his White House budget director to temporarily helm the CFPB threatened the agency’s ability to operate independently as designed.

 

Among those who joined in that filing, former U.S. Representative Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who co-authored the Dodd-Frank legislation with former Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd.

As The Hill reports, the ruling clears the way for Mulvaney to run the CFPB until a permanent director is sworn in or English successfully appeals the decision.

Trump 1 - 0 Resistance.

DOJ Clears FBI Informant In Clinton-Era Russian Bribery Scandal To Testify

Update (8:40 pm ET): The FBI informant who helped the Justice Department secure a conviction against the top official from the US subsidiary of Rosatom, the Russian atomic energy agency, but was blocked by the Obama Justice Department from testifying about Russian efforts to bribe and extort their way into possession of North American uranium assets - a process which was cleared by both Hillary Clinton"s State Department and Robert Mueller"s FBI - has as of moments ago been cleared to testify, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday evening.

#breaking : DOJ allows FBI informant to provide information to Congress on alleged corruption or bribery in transactions for #UraniumOne

— Brooke Singman (@brookefoxnews) October 26, 2017

The informant, who has yet to be named - perhaps out of concerns about his or her life - is being represented by Victoria Toensing, a former Reagan Justice Department official and former chief counsel of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Toensing joined Grassley in urging Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Uranium One deal, which was approved in 2011 by a committee on which former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sat. Around the time the deal was approved, Bill Clinton received a $500,000 speaking fee from a bank with ties to the Russian government, as well as millions more in "charitable contributions" to the Clinton Foundation from entities with ties to the Russian government. Russia’s Tenex nuclear sales arm also secured billions in new American nuclear fuel contracts around the same time.

The Obama administration said at the time they saw no national security reasons to block the deals, one of which gave Vladimir Putin control of 20 percent of America’s uranium stockpile. But last week a series of stories published in The Hill disclosed that before those decisions were made, the FBI had gathered extensive evidence that Vadim Mikerin. Tenex’s chief executive inside the United States, was directing a massive bribery scheme that compromised an American trucking company that shipped uranium for Russia.

The evidence was first gathered in 2009 but charges weren’t brought until 2014. Mikerin pled guilt a year later to a money laundering charge and is currently in prison.

But key members of Congress said they weren’t alerted to the case at the time and are now deeply concerned the Obama administration had a good security reason not to approve the deals given the corruption was uncovered.

Now, finally, we are about to hear the full story.

* * *

“This cries out for a special counsel,” Toensing said on Fox News" “Hannity” Tuesday night. “Congressional committees are fine, but this is a criminal investigation and Jeff Sessions isn’t ever going to feel comfortable appointing that, and Rod Rosenstein is recused because he was the U.S. attorney.”

Toensing added that while Sessions can technically appoint a special counsel, he likely was “not going to be comfortable doing it.”

“He ought to get somebody in here and get this off their hands,” Toensing said.

According to the Hill, Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores confirmed the informant had been cleared to speak with Congress for the first time, nearly eight years after he first went undercover for the FBI. Two House committees, as well as the Senate Judiciary Committee, are investigating the deal. And the informant will now probably testify before one, or perhaps all, of the committees.

.@ChuckGrassley & FBI informant"s attorney Victoria Toensing called for special counsel to investigate #UraniumOne https://t.co/HJxf4BU6cA https://t.co/TFmRMjHWqo

— Brooke Singman (@brookefoxnews) October 26, 2017

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

“As of tonight, the Department of Justice has authorized the informant to disclose to the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, as well as one member of each of their staffs, any information or documents he has concerning alleged corruption or bribery involving transactions in the uranium market, including but not limited to anything related to Vadim Mikerin, Rosatom, Tenex, Uranium One, or the Clinton Foundation,” she said.

Earlier, Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., threatened to use his subpoena power to get access to the informant, who had signed an NDA with the FBI and was unable to speak publicly about Uranium One.

NY Rep. Peter King during an appearance on Fox News accused the FBI of stonewalling Congress.

Rep. Pete King: "Very suspicious" that FBI is stonewalling on Trump-dossier investigation. pic.twitter.com/pX2ex31uda

— Wired Sources (@WiredSources) October 26, 2017

The committees are keen to learn what the informant knows about any Russian efforts to curry favor with Bill and Hillary Clinton, to win Obama administration approval for Moscow’s purchase of large uranium assets in the United States or to secure billions in new contracts uranium sales contracts with American utilities.

“The FBI has informed me that they are releasing my client from his NDA so that he can testify to Congress about his work uncovering the Russian nuclear bribery case and the efforts he witnessed by Moscow to gain influence with the Clintons in hopes of winning favorable uranium decisions from the Obama administration,” Toensing said.

“He is now able and willing to talk with the confessional committees seeking his testimony though I will be working with all parties to ensure his identity remains confidential to ensure his safety,” she added.

* * *

Hillary Clinton is back in the crosshairs of Congressional investigators after two House committees launched investigations into the circumstances surrounding the Obama-era Uranium One deal more than a year after suspicions of a quid-pro-quo were first raised by Peter Schweizer in his infamous “Clinton Cash” expose.

The Hill breathed new life into those allegations last week when it reported on an FBI investigation into attempts by Russian nuclear industry officials at the US-based subsidiary of Rosatom (the Russian nuclear agency)  to bribe and extort their way into control of Canada-based Uranium One - and by extension, the 20% of US uranium assets it controls.

And now that the Uranium One story has found its way back into mainstream consciousness, Chuck Grassley, the widely respected head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is calling for the DOJ to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the deal. The thinking is, presumably, if Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein felt comfortable appointing a prosecutor to dig into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, he should be equally comfortable appointing a prosecutor to investigate these serious allegations from the Obama era. "Whoever in DOJ is capable" of launching an investigation into Uranium One should go ahead and do so, Grassley tweeted.

Whoever in DOJ is capable w authority to appoint a special counsel shld do so to investigate Uranium One "whoever" means if u aren"t recused

— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) October 25, 2017

Earlier this month, Grassley’s committee became the first to launch a probe into the Uranium One deal. Last night, it was joined by two House committees after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said House Intel and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committees would be seeking to learn whether there was in fact an official FBI investigation into the Uranium One deal, and if so, why Congress wasn’t informed.

In addition, the chairmen of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees yesterday announced a joint investigation into the FBI’s handling of a probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server after emails showed earlier this month that former FBI Director James Comey drafted a letter exonerating Clinton before the investigation had been officially completed.

Looking ahead, we wonder if Grassley will be joined by Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on Grassley"s committee who has previously expressed support for an investigation into Clinton’s campaign-era conduct (specifically whether the Clinton’s improperly colluded with former AG Loretta Lynch) or perhaps some other Democrat.
 

Senate Seeks To Interview FBI Informant Linking Russian Nuclear Bribery Case To Clinton Foundation

Yesterday we wrote about the FBI"s undercover informant in the Russian nuclear bribery scandal who tried to come forward with his story last year but was silenced after being "threatened" by the Obama administration (full summary at the bottom of this post). 

Now it seems as though the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Senator Chuck Grassley, has finally taken an interest in what "Confidential Source 1" might have to say about Russians, bribes, the Clinton Foundation and the Obama administration"s efforts to silence him.  According to Circa, Chuck Grassley has sent a formal letter to the informant"s attorney requesting that her client testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley asked the attorney of a former FBI informant Wednesday to allow her client to testify before his committee regarding the FBI"s investigation regarding kickbacks and bribery by the Russian state controlled nuclear company that was approved to purchase twenty percent of United States uranium supply in 2010, Circa has learned.

In a formal letter, Grassley, an Iowa Republican, asked Victoria Toensing, the lawyer representing the former FBI informant, to allow her client, who says he worked as a voluntary informant for the FBI, to be allowed to testify about the "crucial" eyewitness testimony he provided to the FBI regarding members of the Russian subsidiary and other connected players from 2009 until the FBI"s prosecution of the defendants in 2014.

"Reporting indicates that “the informant’s work was crucial to the government’s ability to crack a multimillion dollar racketeering scheme by Russian nuclear officials on U.S. soil” and that the scheme involved “bribery, kickbacks, money laundering, and extortion," Grassley states in his letter. "Further, the reporting indicates that your client can testify that "FBI agents made comments to him suggesting political pressure was exerted during the Justice Department probe" and "that there was specific evidence that could have scuttled approval of the Uranium One deal." It appears that your client possesses unique information about the Uranium One/Rosatom transaction and how the Justice Department handled the criminal investigation into the Russian criminal conspiracy."

Grassley added that "such information is critical to the Committee’s oversight of the Justice Department and its ongoing inquiry into the manner in which CFIUS approved the transaction. Accordingly, the Committee requests to interview your client."

* * *

For those who missed it, below is further background on "Confidential Source 1" from our post yesterday.

While the mainstream media has largely ignored it, the scandal surrounding Russian efforts to acquire 20% of America"s uranium reserves, a deal which was ultimately approved by the Obama administration, and more specifically the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) which included Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder, is becoming more problematic for Democrats by the hour. 

As The Hill pointed out earlier this morning, the latest development in this sordid tale revolves around a man that the FBI used as an informant back in 2009 and beyond to build a case against a Russian perpetrator who ultimately admitted to bribery, extortion and money laundering.  The informant, who is so far only known as "Confidential Source 1," says that when he attempted to come forward last year with information that linked the Clinton Foundation directly to the scandal he was promptly silenced by the FBI and the Obama administration.

Working as a confidential witness, the businessman made kickback payments to the Russians with the approval of his FBI handlers and gathered other evidence, the records show.

Sources told The Hill the informant"s work was crucial to the government"s ability to crack a multimillion dollar racketeering scheme by Russian nuclear officials on U.S. soil that involved bribery, kickbacks, money laundering and extortion. In the end, the main Russian executive sent to the U.S. to expand Russian President Vladimir Putin"s nuclear business, an executive of an American trucking firm and a Russian financier from New Jersey pled guilty to various crimes in a case that started in 2009 and ended in late 2015.

Toensing added her client has had contact from multiple congressional committees seeking information about what he witnessed inside the Russian nuclear industry and has been unable to provide that information because of the NDA.

“He can’t disclose anything that he came upon in the course of his work,” she said.

The information the client possesses includes specific allegations that Russian executives made to him about how they facilitated the Obama administration"s 2010 approval of the Uranium One deal and sent millions of dollars in Russian nuclear funds to the U.S. to an entity assisting Bill Clinton"s foundation. At the time, Hillary Clinton was serving as secretary of State on the government panel that approved the deal, the lawyer said.

It has been previously reported that Bill Clinton accepted $500,000 in Russian speaking fees in 2010 and collected millions more in donations for his foundation from parties with a stake in the Uranium One deal, transactions that both the Clintons and the Obama administration denied had any influence on the approval.

In the midst of the new discoveries revealed yesterday about the Uranium One case (see: FBI Uncovered Russian Bribery Plot Before Obama Approved Uranium One Deal, Netting Clintons Millions), "Confidential Source 1" has once again hired an attorney, Victoria Toensing, a former Reagan Justice Department official and former chief counsel of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to get his story out.

Sitting down with The Hill earlier, Toensing said that the last time her client tried to speak out "both his reputation and liberty" were "threatened" by the Obama administration in a effort to force his silence. 

“All of the information about this corruption has not come out,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “And so my client, the same part of my client that made him go into the FBI in the first place, says, "This is wrong. What should I do about it?"”

Toensing said she also possesses memos that recount how the Justice Department last year threatened her client when he attempted to file a lawsuit that could have drawn attention to the Russian corruption during the 2016 presidential race as well as helped him recover some of the money Russians stole from him through kickbacks during the FBI probe.

The undercover client witnessed “a lot of bribery going on around the U.S.” but was asked by the FBI to sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) that prevents him from revealing what he knows to Congress, Toensing explained.

When he tried to bring some of the allegations to light in the lawsuit last year, “the Obama Justice Department threatened him with loss of freedom. They said they would bring a criminal case against him for violating an NDA,” she added.

Emails obtained by The Hill show that a civil attorney working with the former undercover witness described the pressure the Justice Department exerted to keep the client from disclosing to a federal court what he knew last summer.

“The government was taking a very harsh position that threatened both your reputation and liberty,” the civil lawyer wrote in one email. In another, she added, “As you will recall the gov’t made serious threats sufficient to cause you to withdraw your civil complaint."

As we pointed out last summer when Peter Schweizer first released his feature documentary Clinton Cash, the Uranium One deal at the center of this scandal is believed to have netted the Clintons and their Clinton Foundation millions of dollars in donations and "speaking fees" from Uranium One shareholders and other Russian entities.

Russian Purchase of US Uranium Assets in Return for $145mm in Contributions to the Clinton Foundation - Bill and Hillary Clinton assisted a Canadian financier, Frank Giustra, and his company, Uranium One, in the acquisition of uranium mining concessions in Kazakhstan and the United States.  Subsequently, the Russian government sought to purchase Uranium One but required approval from the Obama administration given the strategic importance of the uranium assets.  In the run-up to the approval of the deal by the State Department, nine shareholders of Uranium One just happened to make $145mm in donations to the Clinton Foundation.  Moreover, the New Yorker confirmed that Bill Clinton received $500,000 in speaking fees from a Russian investment bank, with ties to the Kremlin, around the same time.  Needless to say, the State Department approved the deal giving Russia ownership of 20% of U.S. uranium assets 

Meanwhile, the "journalists" over at CNN are still trying to get to the bottom of exactly who spent the $100,000 on Facebook ads...

It Wasn't Comey's Decision To Exonerate Hillary - It Was Obama's

Authored by Andrew McCarthy via NationalReview.com,

The thing to understand, what has always been the most important thing to understand, is that Jim Comey was out in front, but he was not calling the shots.

On the right, the commentariat is in full-throttle outrage over the revelation that former FBI Director Comey began drafting his statement exonerating Hillary Clinton in April 2016 – more than two months before he delivered the statement at his now famous July 5 press conference.

The news appears in a letter written to new FBI Director Christopher Wray by two senior Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans, Chairman Chuck Grassley and Senator Lindsey Graham. Pundits and the Trump administration are shrieking because this indicates the decision to give the Democrats’ nominee a pass was clearly made long before the investigation was over, and even long before key witnesses, including Clinton herself, were interviewed.

It shows, they cry, that the fix was in!

News Flash: This is not news.

Let’s think about what else was going on in April 2016. I’ve written about it a number of times over the last year-plus, such as in a column a few months back:

On April 10, 2016, President Obama publicly stated that Hillary Clinton had shown “carelessness” in using a private e-mail server to handle classified information, but he insisted that she had not intended to endanger national security (which is not an element of the [criminal statutes relevant to her e-mail scandal]). The president acknowledged that classified information had been transmitted via Secretary Clinton’s server, but he suggested that, in the greater scheme of things, its importance had been vastly overstated.

This is precisely the reasoning that Comey relied on in ultimately absolving Clinton, as I recounted in the same column:

On July 5, 2016, FBI director James Comey publicly stated that Clinton had been “extremely careless” in using a private email server to handle classified information, but he insisted that she had not intended to endanger national security (which is not an element of the relevant criminal statute). The director acknowledged that classified information had been transmitted via Secretary Clinton’s server, but he suggested that, in the greater scheme of things, it was just a small percentage of the emails involved.

Obama’s April statements are the significant ones. They told us how this was going to go. The rest is just details. In his April 10 comments, Obama made the obvious explicit: He did not want the certain Democratic nominee, the candidate he was backing to succeed him, to be indicted. Conveniently, his remarks (inevitably echoed by Comey) did not mention that an intent to endanger national security was not an element of the criminal offenses Clinton was suspected of committing – in classic Obama fashion, he was urging her innocence of a strawman crime while dodging any discussion of the crimes she had actually committed.

As we also now know – but as Obama knew at the time – the president himself had communicated with Clinton over her non-secure, private communications system, using an alias. The Obama administration refused to disclose these several e-mail exchanges because they undoubtedly involve classified conversations between the president and his secretary of state. It would not have been possible to prosecute Mrs. Clinton for mishandling classified information without its being clear that President Obama had engaged in the same conduct. The administration was never, ever going to allow that to happen.

What else was going on in May 2016, while Comey was drafting his findings (even though several of the things he would purportedly “base” them on hadn’t actually happened yet)? Well, as I explained in real time (in a column entitled “Clinton E-mails: Is the Fix In?”), the Obama Justice Department was leaking to the Washington Post that Clinton probably would not be charged – and that her top aide, Cheryl Mills, was considered a cooperating witness rather than a coconspirator.

Why? Well, I know you’ll be shocked to hear this, but it turns out the Obama Justice Department had fully adopted the theory of the case announced by President Obama in April. The Post explained that, according to its sources inside the investigation, there was “scant evidence tying Clinton to criminal wrongdoing” because there was “scant evidence that Clinton had malicious intent in [the] handling of e-mails” (emphasis added). Like Obama, the Post and its sources neglected to mention that Mrs. Clinton’s felonies did not require proof of “malicious intent” or any purpose to harm the United States – just that she willfully transmitted classified information, was grossly negligent in handling it, and withheld or destroyed government records.

As I recounted in the same May 2016 column, the Obama Justice Department was simultaneously barring the FBI from asking Mills questions that went to the heart of the e-mails investigation – questions about the process by which Clinton and her underlings decided which of her 60,000 e-mails to surrender to the State Department, and which would be withheld (it ended up being about 33,000) as purportedly “private” (a goodly percentage were not).

This was the start of a series of Justice Department shenanigans we would come to learn about: Cutting off key areas of inquiry; cutting inexplicable immunity deals; declining to use the grand jury to compel evidence; agreeing to limit searches of computers (in order to miss key time-frames when obstruction occurred); agreeing to destroy physical evidence (laptop computers); failing to charge and squeeze witnesses who made patently false statements; allowing subjects of the investigation to act as lawyers for other subjects of the investigation (in order to promote the charade that some evidence was off-limits due to the attorney-client privilege); and so on. There is a way – a notoriously aggressive way – that the Justice Department and FBI go about their business when they are trying to make a case. Here, they were trying to unmake a case.

Knowing all these things, as we now do and have for a year, I’m baffled by complaints that Comey allegedly made “his” decision not to charge Clinton before key witnesses were interviewed. The main issue is not that witnesses hadn’t been questioned; it is that by April 2016, restraints were already in place to ensure that witness interviews would be fruitless, and that any incriminating information they accidentally turned up would be ignored or buried.

The decision not to indict Hillary Clinton was not made by then-FBI Director Comey. It was made by President Obama and his Justice Department – Comey’s superiors. If you want to say Comey went along for the ride rather than bucking the tide (as he concedes doing when Lynch directed him to call the Clinton probe a “matter,” not an “investigation”), that’s fair. But the fact that Comey already knew in April what he would say in July has long been perfectly obvious.

The Obama administration was going to follow its leader. What Comey ultimately stated was just a repeat of what Obama was openly saying in April, and what Obama’s Justice Department was leaking to the press in May.

Bottom line: In April, President Obama and his Justice Department adopted a Hillary Clinton defense strategy of concocting a crime no one was claiming Clinton had committed: to wit, transmitting classified information with an intent to harm the United States. With media-Democrat complex help, they peddled the narrative that she could not be convicted absent this “malicious intent,” in a desperate effort to make the publicly known evidence seem weak. Meanwhile, they quietly hamstrung FBI case investigators in order to frustrate the evidence-gathering process. When damning proof nevertheless mounted, the Obama administration dismissed the whole debacle by rewriting the statute (to impose an imaginary intent standard) and by offering absurd rationalizations for not applying the statute as written.

That plan was in place and already being implemented when Director Comey began drafting the “findings” he would announce months later. But it was not Comey’s plan. It was Obama’s plan.

Attorney: FBI Screening Gun Owners against Terror Database without Authority

Attorney says FBI violaitng privacy, due process and equal protection by secretly using personal information from the ATF Form 4473 for the unauthorized purpose of checking gun buyers against the Terror Screening Database.

“FBI admits unauthorized program against American gun owners,” attorney and policy analyst Paloma Capanna charged in an update on Robinson vs. Sessions, a lawsuit on civil rights violations resulting from matches on the “No-Fly List.”

“The US DOJ Attorneys admitted in their Answering Brief that the FBI screens ‘all’ Americans seeking to lawfully purchase a firearm against the Terrorist Screening Database (“TSDB”) upon submission of the ATF Form 4473,” Paloma wrote, quoting:

“Since 2004, as part of its background checks for all potential firearms purchasers, the NICS has searched a file containing a list of known or suspected terrorists that is exported by the Terrorist Screening Center from the TSDB into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database.”

Back in 2015 then-Director James Comey testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and made it sound like an exception where FBI was “alerted” and “notified.” Additionally, in his exchange with Sen. Chuck Grassley, he noted “There are a variety of things that we do when we are notified that someone on our known or suspected terrorist database is attempting to buy a firearm,” up to and including stopping the transaction, placing a suspect under surveillance, or arrest.

We’ve discussed the danger of using such lists, developed in secret from undisclosed sources of unknown (to the public) reliability. We’ve also seen how flight denials can be based on mistakes, as happened to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. How many Americans have such resources and connections to be able to expeditiously clear matters up? We’ve also seen serious National Instant Check System flaws, and how “Virtually all of those denied purchasing a gun are false positives.”

We’ve seen Joint Terrorism Task Force triggers as bafflingly all-encompassing as defending the Constitution, supporting liberty candidates and ideals, sporting such apparel or bumper stickers, paying in cash, shaving your beard, and traveling an “illogical” distance to a gun-related event. We’ve seen the sorry state of bureaucratic overreach and infringements devolve into the even more ridiculous, as with the Pennsylvania man placed on a watch list after regularly taking a giant inflatable pink pig to political rallies.

Those demanding gun purchases be halted because of secret lists of unknown accuracy, administered by faceless bureaucrats with unknown sympathies and motives, are essentially advocating for a police state, where fundamental rights can be denied without due process. And face it—if you were a terrorist, and were further inclined to buy a gun “legally,” wouldn’t a NICS denial be a pretty good indication that you’ve been made, and allow you to evade and respond with countermeasures?

Paloma’s revelation adds the further troubling dimension of a federal agency involving itself in an area where it has no legal authorization to do so. But in the absence of a provable denial, having standing to stop the practice in court could be problematic, protracted and expensive. Nonetheless, Paloma maintains all gun purchasers subjected to NICS have been harmed:

“[T]he violation of their civil rights begins the moment the FBI secretly uses their personal information from the ATF Form 4473 for the unauthorized purpose of checking them against the TSDB … Robinson vs. Sessions is about Privacy – the confidentiality of the personal information submitted on the ATF Form 4473. It’s about Due Process – including that neither the ATF nor the FBI tells you what they’re doing with your personal information. It’s about Equal Protection – because American gun owners are the only category or class singled out for discriminatory treatment as being the most likely group responsible for terrorist acts carried out with a firearm.”

An alternative way to stop this would be by having Congress intervene. Such efforts take time and are fraught with delays and resistance, and the current crop of do-nothing Republicans caving to obstructionist Democrats means relief is not something we can count on.

Still, there is one person who can cut through the red tape with a stroke of the pen. Donald Trump owes his presidency to gun owners. The FBI reports to AG Sessions who reports to him. He has authority to issue an executive order and stop the unauthorized practice today.

Unless he hears from a lot of concerned gun owners, most who will remain unaware of this issue thanks to deliberate indifference outside of a niche liberty advocacy readership, don’t count on it.

Also see:

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Trump Jr. Asked To Testify Before Senate Judiciary Committee, "Will Subpoena If Necessary"

The Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) , has invited Donald Trump Jr. to publicly testify about his meeting with a Russian lawyer offering compromising information on Hillary Clinton, with the AP noting that the committee "will subpoena" Trump"s son if it is necessary.

BREAKING: Senate Judiciary Committee chairman says he is asking Donald Trump Jr. to testify; will subpoena if necessary.

— The Associated Press (@AP) July 13, 2017

It would mark the first formal, public invitation for President Trump"s eldest son to meet with lawmakers, who have been clamoring to hear from him over the June 2016 meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.

Previously, Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, told reporters this week that she wanted Trump Jr. to publicly testify before the committee.

"This is aired on front page newspapers. It should be aired front page [in the] United States Senate. The committee of jurisdiction is clearly the Judiciary Committee," she told reporters. “It’s not an Intelligence matter.” She added to CNN on Thursday that she wanted Trump Jr. to testify as soon as next week.

According to The Hill, members of the Senate and House intelligence committees have also said they want to meet with Trump Jr., though neither have publicly invited him.

Separately, Grassley and Feinstein also said that they are willing to subpoena Paul Manafort to testify before their committee.

Clinton Faces Loss Of Security Clearance After State Begins Probing Her Mishandling Of Classified Intel

The State Department confirmed months of speculation on Tuesday when it leaked to Fox News that it had opened a formal inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s alleged mishandling of classified information on her private email server. Clinton, who has repeatedly blamed the FBI’s handling of the inquiry for her embarrassing defeat in November, is now facing the possibility of having her top-level security clearance revoked – a penalty that echoes the investigation of former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn.

President Donald Trump repeatedly promised to investigate the Clinton’s, so the probe could see the president fulfilling yet another campaign promise. As Fox reports, “during the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s use of top-secret and classified information on her private server, former FBI Director James Comey said there were seven email chains on Clinton’s computer that were classified at the “Top Secret/Special Access Program level.”

Another 2,000 emails on her private server were found to have contained information deemed classified now, though not marked classified when sent. In addition, the server also contained 22 top-secret emails deemed too damaging to national security to be released.”

To paraphrase Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that violations of statutes concerning the handling and dissemination of classified materials occurred.

Judicial Watch’s Chris Farrell said he believes Clinton and her “circle of national security criminals” should not have access to any classified information for any reason. 

“Their conduct has cost them that privileged position of special trust and confidence,” Farrell said.

Here’s Fox:

“The department’s investigation aims to determine whether Clinton and her closest aides violated government protocols by using her private server to receive, hold and transmit classified and top-secret government documents. The department declined to say when its inquiry began, but it follows the conclusion of the FBI’s probe into the matter, which did not result in any actions being taken against Clinton or any of her aides.

Depending on the outcome of the current State Department inquiry, Clinton and her aides could have their access to sensitive government documents terminated.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, confirmed to Fox News the department’s formal inquiry.

Meanwhile, Grassley’s committee launched its own inquiry into Clinton’s handling of emails, an inquiry that began in March. Grassley cited among his concerns the July 5 statement of former FBI Director James Comey that the agency found Clinton and her staff members were “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

A response from a Clinton spokesman suggests that the Clinton camp hasn’t learned from its mistakes during the campaign.

In the statement, Clinton’s top spokesman, Nick Merrill told Fox that a final judgment of Clinton has already been reached. “Nothing"s been more thoroughly dissected. It"s over. Case closed. Literally,” said Merrill.

Former FBI Director Comey announced that the bureau had closed its investigation in July 2016, before turning around and announcing that it had been reopened following the discovery of emails from Clinton on a laptop owned by former Congressman Anthony Weiner.

Democrats Delay Gorsuch Supreme Court Panel Vote For One Week

While Democrats debate whether or not to filibuster the Neil Gorsuch nomination for Supreme Court, moments ago they delayed for one week an initial committee vote on Gorsuch. As The Hill first reported, Senator Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the committee, said Democrats had requested that the committee"s vote on Gorsuch be punted to next week.

"I understand that the minority would like to hold [him] over," Grassley said during the Judiciary Committee"s meeting on Monday. Under committee rules any one member can request that a nomination be held the first time it appears on the agenda. 

Today"s move is not a surprise: Democrats were widely expected to delay the committee"s vote until next week. The delay means the committee vote will likely take place on April 3, giving Republicans days to meet their goal of winning Gorsuch"s confirmation by the full Senate by the end of that week. The Senate will then go into a recess.

Democrats are demanding a 60-vote threshold for Gorsuch"s approval, but it is unclear whether the party has enough votes to support a filibuster against Trump"s nominee.

Meanwhile, Republicans have suggested they will change the Senate"s rules allowing a filibuster for Supreme Court nominees if Democrats block Gorsuch.  The committee held a four-day hearing on Gorsuch"s nomination last week, with Trump"s nominee appearing before the committee for three days. 

Democrats also delayed Rod Rosenstein, nominated to be deputy attorney general, by a week.

FBI Director To Testify Publicly On Russian Hacking Allegations

FBI Director Jim Comey and NSA Head Admiral. Michael Rogers will both testify publicly in the House Intelligence Committee"s investigation into Russian interference in the US election, according to Chairman Devin Nunes.

As The Hill reports, Comey has been under fierce pressure from Democrats to reveal whether the bureau is investigating alleged links between Trump’s campaign and Russian officials. His silence on the matter has angered Democrats, given the director’s public accounting last year of the FBI"s investigation into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. The FBI director is also facing pressure to reveal whether or not there is any truth to the president"s claims that Trump Tower was "wiretapped."

This announcement comes minutes before Comey meets with the top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee amid demands that the bureau say if it is investigating any ties between Moscow and the Trump campaign. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the committee"s chairman and ranking member, respectively, told reporters separately that they are expecting to get a closed-door briefing later Wednesday. 

"I"ve been told that I"ll have a briefing this afternoon," Grassley told reporters when asked about reports that Comey was expected to clarify any investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia by Wednesday. 

Grassley added that he hadn"t heard about the Wednesday deadline. Asked if she was getting a briefing with Grassley on Russia later Wednesday, Feinstein—the committee"s top Democrat—told reporters "yeah, we"re supposed to get a briefing." 

A spokeswoman for Grassley confirmed that the two senators will be briefed by Comey.

Comey briefed the top members of the Senate committee - Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.)—as well as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) last week. He also briefed the entire Senate Intelligence Committee last month.

Senator Grassley Launches Probe Into FBI Ties With British Spy Behind "Trump Dossier"

It took less than 24 hours for republicans to strike back at James Comey"s unexpected revolt against Donald Trump on Sunday afternoon, when as the NYT first reported the FBI director had demanded that the DOJ reject Trump"s accusations it was wiretapping the Trump Tower (the DOJ has still not done so, and questions are still being asked why Comey himself did not do as he requested especially since any FISA court order would have come from the FBI).

Senator Chuck Grassley, the republican Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has opened a probe into allegations the FBI worked with the British spy who authored the controversial opposition research dossier - which at various points was funded by both an unnamed democrat and republican - on President Trump during the 2016 election.  In a letter to Comey, Grassley asked for records pertaining to any agreements the agency may have had with Christopher Steele. As a reminder, the former MI6 agent wrote an explosive memo on behalf of Trump’s political enemies alleging that the Russians had compromising information on the president.

Comey briefed Trump on the existence of the memo in a private meeting in January. Shortly after, several news organizations published the unverified allegations, which the White House denied; BuzzFeed controversially posted the whole memo, for which it has since been taken to court. 

In late February, The Washington Post reported that the FBI reached an agreement with Steele whereby the British spy would continue his investigation on behalf of the bureau.

“While Trump has derided the dossier as "fake news" compiled by his political opponents, the FBI’s arrangement with Steele shows that the bureau considered him credible and found his information, while unproved, to be worthy of further investigation,” the Post, which has been spoon-fed every piece of leaked wiretapped information involving the Trump administration, reported at the time.

However, today Grassley pushed back and demand the FBI provide information relevant to its relationship with and use of the British spy, whose salacious allegations - among which an infamous golden shower scene involving hookers - have infuriated Trump and his allies.

“The idea that the FBI and associates of the Clinton campaign would pay Mr. Steele to investigate the Republican nominee for President in the run-up to the election raises further questions about the FBI’s independence from politics, as well as the Obama administration’s use of law enforcement and intelligence agencies for political ends,” Grassley wrote.

“It is additionally troubling that the FBI reportedly agreed to such an arrangement given that, in January of 2017, then-Director Clapper issued a statement stating that ‘the [intelligence community] has not made any judgment that the information in this document is reliable, and we did not rely upon it in any way for our conclusions.’”

In his letter, Grassley asks for all records regarding Steele’s investigation, details of the agreement between the FBI and Steele, the FBI’s policies for using outside investigators, and whether the bureau has relied on any of the information Steele has provided in seeking warrants.

Grasley also wants to know how the FBI obtained a copy of Steele’s documents, whether it has additional documents that were not published by Buzzfeed, and whether any FBI activity was influenced by the Steele memo.

Among Grassley"s  list of questions comes what could be the most devastating of his inquiries, considering President Trump’s accusation that the Obama administration wiretapped his 2016 presidential campaign:

Has the FBI relied on or otherwise referenced the memos or any information in the memos in seeking a FISA warrant, other search warrant, or any other judicial process? Did the FBI rely on or otherwise reference the memos in relation to any National Security Letters? If so, please include copies of all relevant applications and other documents.

“National Security Letters” are one of the FBI’s most secretive instruments for obtaining information. They are frequently accompanied by powerful gag orders which forbid the recipient of the letter from discussing it.

We look forward to the FBI"s response in the matter, as the law enforcement organization, and its boss, scramble to prove to both republicans and democrats that it is not - as many allege - politically tainted beyond salvage.

Senator Finally Admits The Truth: America's Hands Are Just As Dirty As Russia's

Last December, at the height of the "Russia hacked the election" scandal, we showed that between 1946 and 2000, the US had interfered in foreign presidential elections at least 81 times in the period from 1946 through 2000. And while millions of Americans were aware just how "innocent" the US government in general, and the CIA in particular, have been few dared to mention it in public.

Until today, when in an unexpected moment of honesty U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said Wednesday the while idea of Russian involvement in U.S. election is bothersome, he added the United States doesn"t "come to the table with clean hands", noting the CIA"s involvement in an Italian election in the 1940s. Of course, there are many, many other examples of CIA intervention, but we"ll settle for the admission of one to start.

Grassley said that intelligence community leaks of classified information should concern Americans just as much as foreign meddling in U.S. elections. Grassley, an Iowa Republican and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also equated apparent Russian interference in the 2016 election with past operations by the United States to influence the outcomes of foreign political contests.

Grassley, who has made encouraging and protecting government whistleblowers part of his portfolio in Washington, expressed deep reservations about the leaks that have informed news stories in recent days and ultimately forced Flynn’s ouster. Such leaks by intelligence officials are illegal and are not protected by whistleblower laws, Grassley said. "We need to start considering that it’s not only dangerous and scary that some foreign power attempts to influence our elections, but it may be even scarier that intelligence officials in our own government might be trying to undermine our government,” he said.

Grassley was responding to questions about new revelations that the Trump campaign had contacts with Russian intelligence agents before Election Day. As reported last night, while the New York Times said that four Trump aides and associates had contacts with Russian agents, it admitted there was no evidence of collusion in order to affect the result of the election.

For months, Democrats have been raising concerns about Russian involvement in the election. Those concerns have amplified in recent days. In Iowa, the state"s lone Democratic congressman, Rep. Dave Loebsack, said Wednesday that Americans are demanding accountability and a new investigation ought to be launched into the matter. "It has become clearer with each passing day of the Trump administration that there must be a full, independent investigation of his administration and campaign’s connection to Russia," Loebsack said.

Grassley responded: "If you want some history from an 83-year-old person, I can tell you I remember reading about our own CIA trying to influence the Italian voters not to go communist," Grassley said during a call with Iowa reporters. "We very much backed the Christian Democratic Party while the Russian communist party under Stalin was backing the communist party of Italy."

Grassley added later in the call that "Russian involvement in our elections ought to be very seriously considered, just like the French politicians are very nervous about the Russian involvement in their election. But I also said we don"t come to this table hands-free. I told you about the 1948 CIA involvement in the Italian elections where the communists were trying to take over the country and Russia was behind that and our CIA got involved to make sure. None of this stuff should be going on."

He is right, of course, but in a world of realpolitik, cyberwarfare and, now, "fake news" not only will this stuff continue but it will only get worse.

House Votes To Overturn Obama Gun Rule Banning Sales To The Mentally Impaired

The House continued to dismantle Obama"s legacy one item at a time, when on Thursday it struck down regulations that blocked gun ownership by some who have been deemed mentally impaired by the Social Security Administration.

The House voted 235-180 along party lines Thursday to repeal an Obama-era rule requiring the Social Security Administration to send records of some beneficiaries to the federal firearms background check system after they’ve been deemed mentally incapable of managing their financial affairs. The database is used to determine eligibility for buying a firearm.  

The rule, when implemented, would affect about 75,000 recipients of disability insurance and supplemental insurance income who require a representative to manage their benefits because of a disabling mental disorder, ranging from anxiety to schizophrenia. It applies to those between age 18 and full retirement age.  Critics said the rule stripped Second Amendment rights from people who are not dangerously mentally ill, such as those who have eating disorders or mental disorders that prevent them from managing their own finances.

“This is a slap in the face for those in the disabled community because it paints all those who suffer from mental disorders with the same broad brush,” said House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. “It assumes that simply because an individual suffers from a mental condition, that individual is unfit to exercise his or her Second Amendment rights.”

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, called the Social Security regulation “reckless, overly broad and an affront to the Second Amendment rights of people with disabilities." He introduced an identical resolution to reverse it in the Senate on Thursday with 25 Republican co-sponsors, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

“Whenever the government acts to limit the fundamental constitutional rights of citizens, it must do so carefully, lawfully and in a way that doesn’t unduly impact law-abiding Americans,” Grassley said in a statement.

The rule, which took effect Jan. 18 and sets a December compliance date, requires the agency to notify individuals of their possible prohibition from possessing or receiving firearms and their rights to appeal.

The National Rifle Association opposed the rule. While the group says it supports keeping guns away from the mentally ill, it said the determination about who is mentally ill should be left to the courts. “The Obama administration’s last minute, back-door gun grab would have stripped law-abiding Americans of their Second Amendment rights without due process,” said Chris Cox, the NRA’s top lobbyist.

Supporters of the rule said the step was necessary to keep guns away from people with mental disorders like schizophrenia and severe anxiety. Democrats agreed the government must not stigmatize those with disabilities but said this rule affects a small group with severe, long-term mental disorders preventing them from doing any work. Passage of the resolution puts others at risk, they said.

“These are not just people having a bad day,” said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif. “These are not people simply suffering from depression or anxiety. These are people with a severe mental illness who can’t hold any kind of job or make any decisions about their affairs. So the law says very clearly they shouldn’t have a firearm.”

According to The Hill, Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.) accused Republicans of weakening the background check system. "The House charged ahead with an extreme, hastily written, one-sided measure that would make the American people less safe," she said. The Social Security Administration rule would have reported the disability recipients with severe mental disorders to the FBI"s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. House Republicans turned to the Congressional Review Act to overturn the regulation. The law allows lawmakers to roll back rules they disapprove of. Critically for Republicans, the resolutions cannot be filibustered in the Senate.

The regulation is among a host that Republicans aim to repeal under the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to dismiss an outgoing administration’s recently enacted regulations. It requires only a simple majority vote in the Senate.

Earlier Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said House efforts to block five Obama regulations by the end of this week are “just the start.” The House has also voted to overturn a rule to protect streams from coal mining debris, a rule requiring federal contractors to disclose labor and worker safety violations, and another rule requiring oil, gas and minerals companies to disclose payments to foreign governments. “In the weeks ahead, we will act on more resolutions to deliver relief from excessive regulations,” Ryan said. “When you think about the fact that the Obama administration was issuing major regulations at a rate of one every three days, this is real sea change.”

Sessions Will Recuse Himself Of Any Probe Into Hillary Clinton, Does Not Support A Ban On Muslims

As the Jeff Sessions confirmation hearing continues, Trump"s nominee for attorney general said that he would recuse himself from any potential future investigations or probes involving Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while working as secretary of state, as well as any questions about her family’s philanthropic foundation.

Responding to senator Chuck Grassley if he could approach issues involving Trump’s presidential challenger impartially and objectively, Sessions said "I believe that could place my objectivity in question," Sessions said. "I believe the proper thing would be for me to recuse myself." He added the politically charged comments he made about the Clintons during the contentious campaign would give the appearance that he isn"t impartial.

Trump has called into question Clinton’s use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state during the campaign, and questioned whether her family’s solicitation of donations for the foundation could pose a conflict of interest. During the hearing, Grassley noted that Sessions – who supported Trump – had also made comments critical of her handling of sensitive emails and certain actions of the Clinton Foundation.

During the hearing, Sessions also denied accusations or racism. Calling it a “caricature,” Sessions denied the charges brought against him in his hearing for a federal judgeship in 1986 accusing him of being a racist.  "I do not harbor those kinds of animosities and race-based ideas I was accused of," Sessions said under questioning from Feinstein.

The comment followed his opening remarks, in which Sessions addressed allegations that he is racist and that as a U.S. attorney he wrongly pursued a voting rates case against black civil rights activists. "I was accused, amazingly of harboring sensibilities for the KKK. These are false allegations...I abhor the klan and what it represents and its hateful ideology."

Sessions defended the case of voter fraud he brought against the black activists, saying the case was proposed by African Americans who said their ballots had been stolen and altered. He also touted a hate crime he prosecuted against a member of the Ku Klux Klan that resulted in an execution.

"I never declared the NAACP un-American or a civil rights attorney a disgrace to his race," he said. "There is nothing I"m more proud of than my 14 years in the Department of Justice."

The AG candidate also said he still believes Roe v. Wade is the worst Supreme Court decision of all time but it"s the law of the land and deserves respect.  "It’s the law of the land, established and settled for a long time. It deserves respect and I would respect and follow it."

Finally, in another highlight of what has transpired so far, Sessions said he does not support President-elect Trump’s campaign proposal to temporarily ban all Muslims from entering the country. Instead, he said he supports Trump"s proposed "extreme vetting" of immigrants coming from dangerous regions.

However, Sessions said a person"s religion could be a factor if they"re, for example, an extremist whose religion includes harming Americans.