(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today the FBI turned over 70 pages of heavily redacted records about Christopher Steele, the former British spy, hired with Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee funds, who authored the infamous Dossier targeting President Trump during last year’s presidential campaign. The documents show that Steele was cut off as a “Confidential Human Source” (CHS) after he disclosed his relationship with the FBI to a third party. The documents show at least 11 FBI payments to Steele in 2016 and document that he was admonished for unknown reasons in February 2016. The documents were turned over in response to Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for records of communications and payments between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele and his private firm, Orbis Business Intelligence (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:17-cv-00916)).
From Judicial Watch:
“Judicial Watch uncovered 70 pages of heavily redacted documents showing the shady cash-based relationship between the Comey FBI and Christopher Steele who at the same time was working for the Clinton / DNC-funded Fusion GPS to dig up fake dirt on then-candidate Trump. Pretty extraordinary stuff.
It’s one thing to hear in news articles that Christopher Steele had been paid by the FBI, but here we have the documents showing he met with the FBI at least thirteen times during the 2016 campaign season – with eleven of those times resulting in cash payments. So he’s getting money from the Clinton campaign, and he’s also getting money from the FBI.
The first major document talks about Christopher Steele being admonished early in 2016, yet he meets with the FBI repeatedly afterward. And finally, in November 2016, the documents show that – because he was leaking his relationship with the FBI – he’s deemed ‘not suitable’ as a confidential human source. So this source who was deemed ‘not suitable’ then is repeatedly used to justify FISA warrants to spy on the Trump team. It shows there is corruption at the heart of the Russia investigation.”
A government agency using taxpayer money to make fake dirt for one campaign to use against the other campaign…?
“These new docs show the shady, cash-based relationship the Obama FBI had with Clinton operative Christopher Steele. The anti-Trump Russia ‘investigation’ had Christopher Steele at its center and his misconduct was no impediment to using information from his Russia intelligence collaborators to spy on the Trump team. The corruption and abuse is astonishing.” — Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
In all truth, I do not see how anyone can be surprised, especially Judicial Watch, that the federal agency known for good reason mas the “political police” are being used for political purposes.
So let’s look at some background history on the agency here to gain some understanding of how the “political police” came into being, using as out source a document ( https://www.fbi.gov/history/history-publications-reports/the-birth-of-the-federal-bureau-of-investigation ) entitled “The Birth of the Federal Bureau of Investigation” by John F. Fox, Jr., FBI Historian from July 2003, as follows:
It’s all up with the “black cabinet” of Washington,” read the Washington Evening Star.
Congressional hearings were then underway into the practice by which the U.S. Secret Service loaned investigators to other federal agencies, primarily the Justice Department.
As a result of these hearings, Rep. Walter Smith (R-IA) declared that “Nothing is more opposed to our race than a belief that a general system of espionage is being conducted by the general government,” and Rep. John Fitzgerald (D-NY) warned against the dangers of a federal secret police.
As a result of these hearings Congress forbade the Secret Service from loaning investigators to other departments.
Having lost access to those investigators, Attorney General Bonaparte created a small force of detectives for the Department of Justice (DOJ); this was the predecessor of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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As Wikipedia tells us, Charles Joseph Bonaparte ( June 9, 1851 – June 28, 1921) was a French-American lawyer and political activist for progressive and liberal causes who served in the cabinet of the 26th U.S. President, Theodore Roosevelt.
During his tenure as the attorney general, he created the Bureau of Investigation which later grew and expanded by the 1920s under the director J. Edgar Hoover, (1895–1972), as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
All the way back in 1896, the National Bureau of Criminal Identification was founded, which provided agencies across the country with information to identify known criminals.
Thereafter, the 1901 assassination of President William McKinley created a perception that America was under threat from anarchists.
The Departments of Justice and Labor had been keeping records on anarchists for years, but President Theodore Roosevelt wanted more power to monitor them.
Indeed, at pp.368,369 of “I ROSE LIKE A ROCKET – The Political Education of Theodore Roosevelt” by Paul Grondahl, we find as follows on that subject, this after McKinley had been assassinated:
Roosevelt issued a call to battle against anarchy, the authors of its nihilistic tracts, and those who supported the philosophy of lawlessness.
“We should war with relentless efficiency not only against anarchists, but against all active and passive sympathizers with anarchists.”
“Moreover, every scoundrel like (William Randolph) Hearst and his satellites who for whatever purposes appeals to and inflames evil human passion, has made himself accessory before the fact to every crime of this nature, and every soft fool who extends a maudlin sympathy has done likewise.”
Roosevelt was alluding to Hearst’s newspapers’ relentless attacks on President McKinley’s policies and on the politician personally.
Hearst’s Journal reached a nadir in its barrage against McKinley in April 1901, shortly before McKinley’s second inauguration, by editorializing in favor of political assassination.
“If bad institutions and bad men can be got rid only by killing, then the killing must be done.”
The scorn heaped upon Hearst was swift and overwhelming from Republican-affiliated newspapers, which blamed the publisher’s editorials for spurring the assassin to pull the trigger against the president.
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Sounds like politics to me, anyway, especially as Hearst was considering a run for president himself, as we are told by Lapham’s Quarterly in the story “William Randolph Hearst for President – Another news cycle, another media mogul stirring up electoral buzz” by Jonathan Zimmerman, Monday, January 22, 2018, as follows:
In the spring of 1904, a letter to a New York newspaper made the case for a new kind of presidential candidate.
“The American people—like all people—are interested in PERSONALITY,” the writer noted.
“He appeals to the people—not to a corporation.”
“Not even the most venal of newspapers has suggested that anyone owns [him], or that he would be influenced by anything save the will of the people in the event of the election.”
The letter was referring to William Randolph Hearst, who owned several large newspapers himself.
This vast media empire was matched only by Hearst’s ego, which was on rich display during his failed quest for the Democratic presidential nomination that summer.
“It is not simply that we revolt at Hearst’s huge vulgarity; at his front of bronze; at his shrieking unfitness mentally, for the office he sets out to buy,” one editorialist explained in a rival newspaper.
“There never has been a case of a man of such slender intellectual equipment, absolutely without experience in office, impudently flaunting his wealth before the eyes of the people and say, ‘Make me President.’”
Hearst lost the Democratic contest to Alton J. Parker, who would go on to lose to GOP incumbent Theodore Roosevelt.
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Getting back to the narrative, the Justice Department had been tasked with the regulation of interstate commerce since 1887, though it lacked the staff to do so, and it had made little effort to relieve its staff shortage until the Oregon land fraud scandal at the turn of the 20th Century.
As Wikipedia informs us, although this also used to be high school history, the Oregon land fraud scandal of the early 20th century involved U.S. government land grants in the U.S. state of Oregon being illegally obtained with the assistance of public officials (OH, the sandal, who would have thought it of our national politicians) with most of Oregon’s U.S. congressional delegation receiving indictments in the case to include U.S. Senator John H. Mitchell and U.S. Representatives John N. Williamson and Binger Hermann.
In 1870, the United States government granted the Oregon and California Railroad 3 million acres (12,000 km2) of land to build a line from Portland south to California, which land was then sold to settlers in parcels of 160 acres (0.6 km2) at the extremely low price of $2.50 an acre to encourage people to settle along the line, thus fostering development.
However, since much of the land was unfit for development, it did not attract many settlers, but the land was very rich in timber, which meant that timber companies would pay much more than $2.50 an acre, so to circumvent the requirements of the land grant, Edward Harriman, president of the Southern Pacific Railroad—which then owned the O&C—hired former surveyor Stephen A. Douglas Puter to round up people from saloons in Portland’s waterfront district, escort them to the land office, have them register for an O&C parcel as a settler, and then transfer it to Puter’s men.
The accumulated parcels were then sold in large blocks to the highest bidder for timber harvest.
The scheme was exposed when Harriman eventually had a dispute with Puter and fired him, and thereafter, a lumber company bookkeeper exposed the scheme to an Oregonian reporter, and Puter turned on his former boss, testifying against him, and writing a scathing expose, Looters of the Public Domain, about the scheme.
Initially, more than 1,000 indictments were issued in the case, but U.S. District Attorney Francis J. Heney narrowed down the list to the 35 most egregious offenders, including U.S. Senator John H. Mitchell and U.S. Representatives John N. Williamson and Binger Hermann.
Heney charged that Mitchell had illegally used his position to aid a client in the acquisition of patents to fraudulent land claims and Mitchell’s law partner and personal secretary both testified against him, and on July 3, 1905, the jury found him guilty.
He was sentenced to six months in prison and a $1,000 fine.
Mitchell was convicted under Rev. Stat. §1782 (enacted 1864) which prohibited Senators and other officials from engaging in compensated representation in matters in which the United States was interested.
The year before, in an unrelated case under the same statute, Senator Joseph R. Burton had become the first U.S. Senator convicted of a crime.
Williamson’s trial also resulted in conviction for subornation of perjury in 1905.
The prosecution argued that the three defendants had attempted to illegally obtain land claims under the Timber and Stone Act.
Williamson appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned the verdict in 1908 because of apparent jury tampering and witness intimidation.
In 1907, Hermann was found not guilty of destroying public documents.
His second trial for collusion with the actual land fraud was postponed until 1910, and ended in a hung jury and Heney declined to refile charges.
Heney also prosecuted John Hicklin Hall, who was the U.S. Attorney originally charged with investigating the case, but who had been fired in 1905 by President Theodore Roosevelt for not aggressively pursuing the investigation.
Heney charged Hall with failure to prosecute fraudulent land companies and for using knowledge of the fraudulent activities for his own political advantage, and the jury convicted Hall in 1908.
Hall was later pardoned by President William Howard Taft, who himself went on to become a Supreme Court justice.
With that as background, let’s get back to the narrative once again:
President (Teddy) Roosevelt instructed Attorney General Charles Bonaparte to organize an autonomous investigative service that would report only to the Attorney General, who himself or herself, people, is a political appointee, as we recently saw in the case of the now-famous meeting between Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Hillary Clinton’s husband Bill which took place in June 2016, while the FBI was investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
As Newsweek reported in the story “After Clinton-Lynch Tarmac Meeting, FBI Scrambled to Find and Punish Source, Newly Released Emails Show” by Max Kutner on 12/15/17:
But after Observer published an article containing additional details about the encounter, citing an anonymous “security source” who had been present, the FBI and Justice Department moved from damage control to discussions about identifying the source and punishing that person, the emails show.
At the time, the publisher of Observer was Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and one of his senior advisers.
On July 2, a person whose name is redacted in the FBI release wrote to a bureau employee about the Observer article.
The employee, whose name is also redacted, responded, “I agree with your assessment about the source, which in reading the article, I believe was one of the local PD officer [sic] assisting with one of the two motorcade [sic] there on the Tarmac.”
“Either way, they should have never offered any type of opinion or details of what did or didn’t happen, as this is the most principle and basic tenant of executive protection.”
The FBI employee added, “Unfortunately, this article is a breach in security protocol and I am addressing it with the Phoenix division to make certain that they pursuit [sic] this and identify the source of the breach.”
The next day, an undisclosed FBI employee, presumably the same person from the earlier email, wrote to several colleagues, “I believe that the source quoted in this article is one of the local Phoenix LEO’s.”
“Needless to say that I have contacted the Phoenix office and will contact the local’s [sic] who assisted in an attempt to stem further damage.”
An FBI employee responded, “This article is infuriating.”
Another FBI person wrote in response, “You think there will be a need for non-disclosure agreements in the future?”
A colleague wrote back, “That might not be a bad idea, given the circumstances.”
All of their names are redacted.
Another FBI employee whose name is redacted responded to the email about the article, “We need to find that guy and bring him or her before a supervisor.”
A colleague responded, “I’m trying to find out thru [sic] the PX STL.”
“Hopefully, we will find out and at the very minimum, make sure he never works on any detail.”
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Political police, indeed.
Getting back to the narrative:
Bonaparte reached out to other agencies, including the U.S. Secret Service, for personnel, investigators in particular.
On May 27, 1908, the Congress forbade this use of Treasury employees by the Justice Department, citing fears that the new agency would serve as a secret police department.
Again at Roosevelt’s urging, Bonaparte moved to organize a formal Bureau of Investigation, which would then have its own staff of special agents.
The Bureau of Investigation (BOI) was created on July 26, 1908, after the Congress had adjourned for the summer.
Attorney General Bonaparte, using Department of Justice expense funds, hired thirty-four people, including some veterans of the Secret Service, to work for a new investigative agency.
Its first “Chief” (the title is now known as “Director”) was Stanley Finch.
Bonaparte notified the Congress of these actions in December 1908.
In 1932, the bureau was renamed the United States Bureau of Investigation.
The following year it was linked to the Bureau of Prohibition and rechristened the Division of Investigation (DOI) before finally becoming an independent service within the Department of Justice in 1935.
In the same year, its name was officially changed from the Division of Investigation to the present-day Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI.
So there is some initial background on this highly-political federal police force which is akin to an attack dog for the political Department of Justice which holds the whip in its hand.
Stay tuned, for more on this story is yet to come.
When Obama, or whatever his real name is, loses the protection of the National Security Letter that has protected him from background investigations, he’ll find himself in front of a military court, facing a life in prison.
Good morning, Hoss, dude, and are you going to hold your breath?
It can not come soon enough.
Are you too going to hold your breath or hang by your thumbs, waiting for it to happen?
No, praying. On my knees, praying.
Go for it then, Patty, and may your prayers be answered!
As to the political nature of the inaptly-named United States Department of Justice, which controls the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in a recent story in the Albany, New York Times Union entitled “Contractor in Troy’s King Street demolition admits to federal crime – Guilty plea by M. Cristo Inc. comes 5 years after emergency demolition” by Brendan J. Lyons on July 30, 2018, there was this interesting sentence which certainly has people up this way scratching their heads, wondering just what the “conflict” could possibly be:
The case against M. Cristo Inc. was prosecuted by the U.S. attorney’s office in Buffalo because of an undisclosed conflict in the office of the U.S. attorney in Albany.
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How many different ways can that statement be taken?
Somebody violates federal laws, and the U.S. attorney can’t prosecute because of a “conflict of interest?”
Now, how did that happen, we wonder?
But of course, they are not going to tell us, because what we don’t know won’t hurt them.
And it is politics, afterall.
You know – hush money to make them look the other way.
But no, that couldn’t be it, could it.
They probably play golf together, or maybe they’re on the same bowling team.
Or their wives are sisters.
Probably something real innocent like that, so go back home, folks, there’s nothing to see here, so get back in your basements and stay there where you’ll be sure to stay safe.