Elizabeth Warren took 2018 donations from opioid moguls she denounced

Presidential hopeful Rep. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts will return money she accepted from a relative of a top opioid manufacturer for her 2018 Senate reelection campaign, according to a new report. Warren will return $2,500 in donations she received from Beverly Sackler, who was married to Purdue Pharma owner Raymond Sackler, and donate the funds to charity, an aide for Warren told Politico Tuesday. The aide did not provide comment when pressed which charity Warren had selected. She also will return contributions from other members of the Sackler family that were given during her 2012 Senate campaign. Altogether, $4,500 will be given back to charity.

A day after Politico inquired about the donation, Warren unveiled an updated proposal known as the CARE Act to spend $100 billion over the next 10 years to fight the opioid crisis. “This crisis has been driven by greed, pure and simple. If you don’t believe that, just look at the Sackler family,” Warren said in a Medium post Wednesday. She is also urging to pass her Corporate Executive Accountability Act, which would put pharmaceutical executives behind bars if they intentionally “hurt people through criminal negligence.” “That’s the America we deserve. An America where we take care of each other, where health care for every person who needs it matters more than rich families shielding their wealth,” Warren said. “An America where when people like the Sacklers destroy millions of lives to make money, they don’t get museum wings named after them, they go to jail.”

A spokesman for the Sackler family defended Beverly Sackler’s donation and said the family was open to a discussion with Warren about the issue and the company’s origins. “Beverly Sackler is well into her 90s and denigrating her personal donation, made with the best intentions, can serve no proper political purpose,” a spokesperson for the Sackler family said in a statement, according to Politico. “We would welcome a genuine dialogue with the senator that’s fact-based, as the facts clearly demonstrate that the company started by Beverly’s family has for decades been the industry leader in combating opioid abuse while providing products essential for the treatment of serious chronic pain.”

Other 2020 Democratic candidates have also accepted money from Sackler, including Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Michael Bennet, D-Colo.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/elizabeth-warren-took-2018-donations-from-opioid-moguls-she-denounced

DOJ inspector general 'homing in on' FBI’s use of unverified Steele dossier

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is investigating the FBI’s reliance on the unverified dossier produced by British ex-spy Christopher Steele in the surveillance of a Trump campaign associate “despite questions about [Steele’s] credibility." Citing unnamed sources, the Wall Street Journal reports Horowitz “is homing in on” and “has been asking witnesses about” the FBI’s “treatment of information” provided by Steele, described as a “key source”, who was used to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page. This is part of Horowitz’s broad investigation into alleged FISA abuse and more. Steele’s dossier was funded in part by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign through the Perkins Coie law firm and opposition research group Fusion GPS, which had reached out to and contracted Steele.

The new Wall Street Journal report says the inspector general’s office “has been asking why the FBI continued to cite Steele as a credible source in the renewal applications.” And a specific focus of Horowitz’s team is apparently “a news report cited extensively in the [FISA] applications that appeared to bolster Steele’s credibility… [which] said U.S. intelligence officials were investigating allegations similar to those Steele had raised.” The “news report” was written by Yahoo News journalist Michael Isikoff, who said he was stunned when he learned that his September 2016 article for Yahoo News was used in the FISA applications targeting Carter Page to bolster Steele’s credibility, despite his source being Steele himself. Iskoff said “it’s self-referential” and “it seems a little odd that they would cite the Yahoo News story about the matter they are investigating themselves based on the same material that had been separately presented to the FBI.” Isikoff personally met with Steele in person in September 2016. Also at the meeting was Isikoff’s “old friend” Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of Fusion GPS. The three of them talked about Trump and Russia and Steele provided him with some of his research. Isikoff now admits that everyone should have been more cautious about Steele’s information. “I think it’s fair to say that all of us should have approached this, in retrospect, with more skepticism, particularly when we didn’t know where it was coming from,” Isikoff said. “We knew that Steele compiled it, but that Steele did not hear these allegations himself. Somebody else heard them from others and then passed them along. That’s thirdhand stuff, which is not usually the kind you want for publishing.”

In the FISA renewal applications, which spanned until June 2017, the FBI continued to insist that it didn’t think Steele was Isikoff’s source even though Steele himself had said that he was by the spring of 2017. The Wall Street Journal report says “investigators have also asked about an internal FBI evaluation of Steele’s credibility that found his reporting had been ‘minimally corroborated’ even as it also said he had provided information ‘of value’ to the U.S. intelligence community.” The report says “the evaluation was reflected in a ‘human source validation report’ written by a unit of the FBI after the bureau cut off its relationship with Steele in October 2016… because of his disclosures to the media about his work for the FBI.” Heavily redacted FBI records unearthed through Freedom of Information Act litigation in 2018 show that Steele was cut off as a confidential human source because of his improper disclosures to third parties and that his “handling agent advised [Steele] that [Confidential Human Source] was not to operate to obtain any intelligence whatsoever on behalf of the FBI.”

According to a New York Times report from April, the FBI reached out to some of Steele’s foreign sources in an attempt to determine their credibility, and as early as January 2017 agents had reportedly concluded that some of the dossier’s contents may have been based upon “rumors and hearsay” which were “passed from source to source.” The agents believed that some of Steele’s information may have even been based upon “Russian disinformation.” For its part, Fusion GPS told the Washington Examiner that it stands by Steele’s dossier, claiming that “to our knowledge, nothing in the Steele memoranda has been disproven.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/doj-inspector-general-homing-in-on-fbis-use-of-unverified-steele-dossier

GOP senator says deep state investigation will find 'all roads lead to Comey'

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., on Wednesday warned former FBI Director James Comey that he could end up at the center of a criminal conspiracy to undermine President Trump’s 2016 campaign. "He's worried, and he should be, that Mr. Barr … is going to look further into the genesis of the investigation of the Trump campaign,” Kennedy said during an appearance on “America’s Newsroom.” “I think they’re going to find that all roads lead to Mr. Comey.”

Since being fired by Trump in 2017, Comey has been a vocal critic of the president, insisting he was removed because the department, under his watch, opened an investigation into possible contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians seeking to influence the election.

During congressional testimony earlier this month, Attorney General William Barr said he believes that investigation was sparked by illegal spying done by officials in the top levels of the FBI. “I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Comey told "CBS This Morning." “The FBI doesn’t spy, the FBI investigates. We investigated a very serious allegation that Americans might be hooked up with the Russian effort to attack our democracy. The Republicans need to breathe into a paper bag.” Kennedy said he and his GOP colleagues in the Senate are breathing just fine. “It’s clear to most Americans that Mr. Comey is not and never was a law enforcement professional. He’s just a hack politician,” Kennedy said.

The president has repeatedly referred to Comey as a “liar” and a “leaker” who should be prosecuted for abusing his power at one of the country’s most powerful law enforcement agencies. Comey often attacks Trump personally, saying he is unfit for office and should be removed. In a recent op-ed in the New York Times Comey wrote Trump’s selfishness was “eating the souls” of otherwise good officials, such as Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Kennedy said Comey is likely to be discovered as the driving force behind that push — one that will have a lasting impact on the bureau and the American public’s trust in its political impartiality. “Why he did what he did I don’t know,” he said. “But it is breathtaking to the extent that he has hurt the FBI … and we need to work hard to get their reputation back thanks to Mr. Comey’s tarnishing of that agency.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/john-kennedy-says-deep-state-investigation-will-find-all-roads-lead-to-comey

Jeff Sessions sides with William Barr about 'spying'

Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions has picked a side in the "spying" debate. At the SALT conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Sessions was asked to respond to FBI Director Christopher Wray disputing Attorney General William Barr's use of the word "spying" to describe surveillance of President Trump's 2016 campaign. "I think Chris Wray — didn't he say that's one way of saying it? He wouldn't have said it that way," Sessions said. "I think that 'spying' is a perfectly good word."

On Tuesday, Wray testified to a budget panel that would not use the word. "That’s not the term I would use," Wray testified. "To me the key question is making sure it's done by the book, consistent with our lawful authorities. That's the key question; different people use different colloquial phrases." The debate over the term began at a hearing last month when Barr said "spying did occur" on the Trump campaign. He clarified that he hasn't proven there was any wrongdoing and is looking into alleged misconduct within in the Justice Department and FBI, but his "spying" declaration riled Democrats and others.

At a Democratic retreat, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Barr went "off the rails." Former FBI Director James Comey, who led the bureau when it opened its counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016, said "the FBI doesn’t spy, the FBI investigates." Following revelations that the FBI sent an undercover agent to meet with George Papadopoulos in London in 2016, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper conceded that what the FBI had been doing “meets the dictionary definition of spying." Sessions also noted that FBI's use of undercover agents could be considered spying, adding that he wants to see more facts come out. Sessions was participating in a panel alongside former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is a former federal prosecutor. He offered his take on the debate, saying, "There's legal spying and illegal spying — but both are spying."

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/jeff-sessions-sides-with-barr-about-spying

>>6448019

>>6448083

And the entire food chain eventually ends up on the door steps of the Clinton's & Bush's

Former Director James Comey: 'The FBI doesn’t spy, the FBI investigates'

Former FBI Director James Comey pushed back on Attorney General William Barr use of the word spying to describe the surveillance the FBI conducted on President Trump's 2016 campaign, saying the federal agency does not spy, but it investigates. "Yeah I have no idea what he's talking about," Comey said when asked about Barr's usage of the word on "CBS This Morning" on Wednesday. "The FBI doesn't spy, the FBI investigates. "We investigated a very serious allegation, that Americans might be hooked up with the Russian effort to attack our democracy. The Republicans need to breathe into a paper bag," he said. Comey said if the investigation was centered around the same premise, but it involved Democrats instead, "[Republicans] would be screaming for the FBI to investigate, and that's all we did.""

Barr was asked about using the word "spying" during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in April, after Democrats complained it unfairly pinned blame on the Obama administration for spying on a political adversary. Barr said he thought it accurately described what occurred and criticized the media's reaction. "I’m not going to abjure the use of the word spying. I don’t think — you know, my first job was in the CIA — I don't think the word spying has any pejorative connotation at all. To me the question is always whether or not it is authorized and adequately predicated, spying," Barr said. "I think spying is a good English word that in fact doesn’t have synonyms because it is the broadest word incorporating all forms of covert intelligence collections. So I'm not going to back off of the word spying … and I use it frequently as the media."

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/former-fbi-director-james-comey-the-fbi-doesnt-spy-the-fbi-investigates

>>6448213

My thought is that he was the Manchurian candidate created by GHWB.