Ex-FBI lawyer: Carter Page FISA application approved in 'unusual' way by McCabe, Yates, and Baker

A former top lawyer for the FBI described to lawmakers the “unusual” way the surveillance request targeting former Trump campaign associate Carter Page was handled by top leadership at the Justice Department and FBI, according to a transcript released this week.

In front of a joint session of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees on Aug. 31, 2018, former FBI Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson said she was normally responsible for signing off on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications before they reached the desk of her superiors for approval. Anderson said the “linear path” those applications typically take was upended in October 2016, with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates signing off on the application before she did. Because of that unusual high-level involvement, she didn’t see the need to “second guess” the FISA application. The Page FISA application was filed by the Justice Department and FBI with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in October 2016. A surveillance warrant was granted and three renewals were subsequently approved. The FISA application relied heavily on unverified research in British ex-spy Christopher Steele's dossier on President Trump's ties to Russia, which was compiled through his employment with opposition research firm Fusion GPS with funding from the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm. Anderson said all FISAs need to be signed off on in the FBI’s National Security Law Branch, where she was assigned at the time. Anderson said she was the Senior Executive Service approver for the “initiation” of the Page FISA, including determining whether there is legal sufficiency. But Anderson stressed “in this particular case, I'm drawing a distinction because my boss and my boss’ boss had already reviewed and approved this application.” She emphasized “this one was handled a little bit differently in that sense, in that it received very high-level review and approvals — informal, oral approvals — before it ever came to me for signature.”

Anderson said that FISA approvals are typically “tracked in a linear fashion” and that someone in the Senior Executive Service “is the final approver on hard copy before a FISA goes to the director or deputy director for signature.” She said the Page FISA was approved outside regular procedures. "Because there were very high-level discussions that occurred about the FISA," Anderson said she believed that meant “the FISA essentially had already been well-vetted all the way up through at least the Deputy Director [McCabe] level on our side and through the DAG [Yates] on the DOJ side.” Yates had already signed the application by the time it made it to Anderson’s desk. The publicly available Page FISA documents show then-FBI Director James Comey also signed off on it.

Because the FISA application had already been approved at such high levels, Anderson said she did not look at the Page FISA application with much skepticism. “I wouldn't view it as my role to second-guess that substantive approval that had already been given by the Deputy Director [McCabe] and by the Deputy Attorney General [Yates] in this particular instance," she said. Asked why this FISA application was different, Anderson said she believed “the sensitivity level of this particular FISA resulted in lots of very high-level attention both within the FBI and DOJ.” “The General Counsel [Jim Baker] … personally reviewed and made edits to the FISA, for example,” Anderson said. “The Deputy Director was involved in reviewing the FISA line by line. The Deputy Attorney General over on the DOJ side of the street was similarly involved, as I understood, reviewing the FISA application line by line.” Baker recently defended the FBI’s handling of the FISA process, saying “we took [the dossier] seriously” but “we didn’t necessarily take it literally” and did not treat it as “literally true in every respect.” Baker also said, “I am not going to go into details with respect to what investigative steps we actually took to try to validate it.” Former FBI Director James Comey still referred to the dossier as “salacious and unverified” even in 2017.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/ex-fbi-lawyer-carter-page-fisa-application-approved-in-unusual-way-by-mccabe-yates-and-baker

Rep. Elijah Cummings denies that wife's charity poses conflict of interest, tax violation

Rep. Elijah Cummings denied that corporate donations to his wife’s charity posed a conflict of interest with his House Oversight Committee chairmanship and denounced an IRS complaint filed against the organization as “a fabricated distraction” on Wednesday. The National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group, filed an IRS complaint against Cummings’ wife Maya Rockeymoore’s nonprofit organization on Monday, the Washington Examiner first reported. The complaint asked the IRS to investigate the overlap between Rockeymoore’s nonprofit Center for Global Policy Solutions and her for-profit consulting firm Global Policy Solutions LLC to determine whether the arrangement was used for “illegal private benefit.”

Rockeymoore’s nonprofit group and LLC have mutual clients, donors, and projects and were located at the same address and share a phone number. The National Legal and Policy Center’s IRS complaint claims that they “appear to operate almost as a single entity, allowing for an illegal private benefit for Maya Rockeymoore Cummings and her husband.” Cummings, 68, a Maryland Democrat, is chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Rockeymoore, 48, is the chairwoman of the Maryland Democratic Party and briefly ran in the state's gubernatorial race last year. The couple married in 2008.

Rockeymoore’s nonprofit group received over $6.2 million in grants between 2013 and 2016 from special interest groups and corporations. Several of the nonprofit group’s financial backers — which included Google, J.P. Morgan, and Prudential — have business interests before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Cummings has served as Democratic chairman of the committee since January and previously served as ranking member.

The largest contributor to the nonprofit organization was the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which gave a total of $5.5 million to Rockeymoore’s consulting firm and $5.2 million to her nonprofit group. The foundation ceased supporting Rockeymoore’s groups in 2017. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation was established by Johnson & Johnson founder Robert Wood Johnson but is not officially affiliated with the pharmaceutical company. The foundation owns 13 million shares of Johnson & Johnson stock worth over $1.7 billion, making it one of the company’s largest shareholders.

In recent months, Cummings has been a vocal opponent of Johnson & Johnson, targeting the company as part of the House Oversight Committee’s investigation of drug price inflation. Rockeymoore told the Washington Post on Tuesday that she had no relationship with Johnson & Johnson and denied that there was any connection between Cummings’ investigation of the company and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ending its funding to her group. Rockeymoore and Cummings, who declined to comment to the Washington Examiner, issued statements on Tuesday slamming the scrutiny as politically motivated.

Cummings called the complaint “a fabricated distraction from the important work being done on behalf of Americans, such as lowering the skyrocketing prices of prescription drugs,” in a statement to a Maryland political reporter. Rockeymoore also blasted the Washington Examiner in a statement to Maryland Matters on Tuesday, calling the media inquiry into her nonprofit group a “hit piece.” “It appears a conservative front group and a news outlet funded by a Republican billionaire are pushing a hit piece filled with faulty research, lies and innuendo in an attempt to tarnish my personal reputation, professional work and public service as well as that of my spouse, U.S. Congressman Elijah E. Cummings — who holds a critical oversight role in our nation’s government,” said Rockeymoore.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/rep-elijah-cummings-denies-that-wifes-charity-poses-conflict-of-interest-tax-violation

Wells Fargo, TD Bank have turned Trump's financial records over to House

Wells Fargo and TD Bank have already handed over President Trump’s financial records to the House Financial Services Committee, according to a Wednesday report. Two sources familiar with the House’s investigation into Trump’s finances told NBC News that Wells Fargo handed the committee thousands of documents and TD Bank also provided multiple documents, joining seven other financial institutions that have complied with the committee’s subpoenas. The committee, chaired by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., wants documents on business the banks conducted with suspected Russian and Eastern European money launderers. The committee sent subpoenas to the two banks, along with Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase, in April with a May 6 deadline. Other banks have failed to meet the deadline, but the Royal Bank of Canada is in the process of complying.

Wednesday's news comes the same day a federal judge ruled that Deutsche Bank and Capital One can share Trump’s financial documents with Congress and two days after a federal judge ruled against blocking the committee’s subpoena of Mazars USA, Trump’s accounting firm. Deutsche Bank has lent Trump more than $2 billion over the years, and Trump’s latest financial disclosures indicate he still owes the organization $130 million.

Trump, along with three of his children and the Trump Organization, filed a federal lawsuit in Manhattan in April to stop Deutsche Bank and Capital One from complying with the subpoena. They allege the subpoenas are a political ploy intended to “harass” the president. “The potential use of the U.S. financial system for illicit purposes is a very serious concern,” Waters said after issuing the subpoenas. “The Financial Services Committee is exploring these matters, including as they may involve the president and his associates, as thoroughly as possible pursuant to its oversight authority, and will follow the facts wherever they may lead us.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/wells-fargo-td-bank-have-turned-trumps-financial-records-over-to-house

Pentagon plan could send 10,000 troops to the Middle East

In a plan that is set to be presented to the White House on Thursday, up to 10,000 more U.S. service members would be deployed to the Middle East as tensions between the U.S. and Iran are high. The Associated Press reports the Pentagon's plan was aimed at ensuring the safety of the U.S. and its allies in the region and that the troops would be deployed in a defensive manner, with the possibility to include more Patriot missile batteries and ships. The State Department announced May 15 they are ordering all nonemergency U.S. government employees to immediately leave Iraq. The evacuation order applied to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the U.S. Consulate in Erbil. "The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Iraq," the embassy in Baghdad said. The Pentagon's plan also comes after a rocket, the same model used by Iran, was fired at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on Sunday. No casualties were reported in the attack.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/pentagon-plan-could-send-10-000-troops-to-the-middle-east

>>6564489

I hear you anon, not sure there are many like that left anymore.

>>6564505

I have a feeling all of his deeds unfold now..True the Vote, intimidation, ect.. where all his dirty money came from. Well deserved just desserts in my opinion.

>>6564534

>>6564542

While I don't see them going out of country, who's to say they aren't on stand by for the US, there is no mention of which unit. I was looking for the drop about the National Guard..haven't found it though, wonder if this is related to that.

Kyrsten Sinema Votes Yes On Two More Trump-Appointed Judges

Democratic Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema voted “yes” Wednesday on two of four U.S. district judges up for Senate confirmation. Sinema was one of only three Democrats to vote to confirm Trump appointee Kenneth D. Bell to be U.S. district judge for the Western District of North Carolina.

Bell, a former North Carolina assistant U.S. attorney and current partner with McGuireWoods, LLP, a Charlotte, North Carolina law firm, was confirmed by a 55 – 43 vote with two senators — California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris and Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis — not voting. Additionally, the Arizona senator voted yes to confirm former Clarence Thomas clerk Carl Nichols to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Nichols also won his confirmation by a 55-43 vote.

Other Democratic senators to join Sinema on both confirmations were Arizona’s Doug Jones and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, both of whom have supported Trump judicial nominees in the past. Nichols and Bell became the 68th and 69th Trump-appointed district court judges to be confirmed by the Senate.

Sinema, whose vote for William Barr’s attorney general confirmation isn’t the first time she has broken ranks with fellow Democrats, drew the ire of NARAL Pro-Choice America after stating her support for Michael Liburdi’s nomination for the U.S. District Court in Arizona. Ilyse Hogue, the group’s president, called it “beyond troubling” in February. Sinema did vote “no” on Stephen Clark and Howard Nielson, but both won their U.S. District Court confirmations on Wednesday, as well.

https://www.dailycaller.com/2019/05/22/krysten-sinema-kenneth-bell-confirmation/

>>6564603

I have a feeling based on what I have been reading..NG will be activated if they already haven't told to be on stand by. Thinking Declass will be the main reason.

Ohio city warns residents as KKK, Antifa, New Black Panthers converge over Memorial Day weekend

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/ohio-city-warns-residents-as-kkk-antifa-new-black-panthers-converge-over-memorial-day-weekend

cover story, maybe..

>>6564474

Most of MS13 are illegal,and dangerous killers, they could also be the sleeper cells. Trained by CIA, I believe…