Rosenstein considered sneaking Trump's 'potentially incriminating' draft letter firing Comey out of White House

Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein considered sneaking out of the White House a copy of President Trump's draft letter firing FBI Director James Comey in May 2017. That four-page letter was never used, and in fact Rosenstein himself wrote a distinctly different memo used to justify Comey's termination, but the previously unreported account adds further details about the tumultuous experience the Justice Department's No. 2 official had over a span of several days which led up to the appointment of Robert Mueller to be special counsel of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The existence of the initial draft letter was first reported by the New York Times in September 2017 and only a portion of the letter, which was provided to Mueller's team, was conveyed in the special counsel's final report. But a report by the New York Review of Books on Wednesday sheds new light on the contents of that draft letter and Rosenstein's actions in May 2017. In the draft letter, Trump made clear he wanted to fire Comey because of the Russia investigation and his frustration with the director refusing to say publicly that Trump was not personally under investigation.

Also among the previously unreported aspects of the draft letter was Trump's dismay with Comey allowing FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to be involved in the Russia investigation. The president complained McCabe was biased against him and cited McCabe's wife, Jill, who ran unsuccessfully as a candidate for the Virginia state Senate. McCabe was fired from the FBI on March 16, 2018, after the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General determined he misled investigators about the role he had in leaking information to the Wall Street Journal in October 2016 about the investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

Sources said Comey's refusal to state publicly whether Trump was under investigation (which he repeatedly told the president in private that he was not) was due to a decision made by Rosenstein and top DOJ official Dana Boente. The draft letter, which the report states was largely dictated by Trump himself, was shown to Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions during a meeting at the White House. Both agreed to write their own recommendations to fire Comey. It was at this meeting Rosenstein considered surreptitiously taking the draft letter out of the White House because it had the potential to be incriminating evidence, he told a longtime Justice Department official.

The New York Review of Books stated that Rosenstein "was nervous as he considered walking out of the White House with the letter in case he was detected spiriting it away" and wondered that if he went along with Trump's story on the reasons for the firing "he himself might have unwittingly acted as an accessory to a presidential obstruction of justice". Rosenstein believed the letter was "potentially incriminating evidence."

Trump fired Comey on May 9, using Rosenstein's memo, which was critical of Comey for his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server, but not the Russia investigation. Sessions, who had recused himself from the Russia investigation, wrote an accompanying letter recommending Comey's removal. In the days that followed, Rosenstein reportedly spiraled into rage and paranoia as he felt like he was being used by the White House, even as Trump himself acknowledged publicly that the "Russia thing" played into his decision to fire Comey. It was during this period that Rosenstein was said to have discussed wearing a “wire” to record conversations with Trump and recruiting Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office. Rosenstein and his staff brushed off these reports of his comments as either untrue or that what he said was meant as a joke.

On May 17, Rosenstein appointed Mueller, a former FBI director, as special counsel. Nearly two years later, Mueller completed his Russia investigation, which also examined possible obstruction of justice by the president. Mueller's team was unable to find sufficient evidence of conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia and declined to make a determination about obstruction. Mueller's report did lay out 10 instances in which Trump might have obstructed justice, but Mueller declined to make a determination on the matter, citing a Justice Department guideline that sitting presidents cannot be indicted.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/rosenstein-considered-sneaking-trumps-potentially-incriminating-draft-letter-firing-comey-out-of-white-house

A closer look at Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein's letter on Comey's firing

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3711188-Rosenstein-letter-on-Comey-firing.html

Barack’s ICE chief: Cages were Obama’s idea

Former President Barack Obama’s top immigration chief in charge of removing illegal immigrants said that the “cages” Democrats have accused President Trump of housing children in were the brainchild of the Obama administration. “I’ve been to that facility, where they talk about cages. That facility was built under President Obama under (Homeland Security) Secretary Jeh Johnson. I was there because I was there when it was built,” said Thomas Homan, who was Obama’s executive associate director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for nearly four years.

At an immigration conference today, Homan, under consideration for a new position of “border czar” in the Trump administration, grew visibly angry answering a question about “cages” often cited by Democratic critics of the president. Homan, who ran Obama’s successful deportation operation, ripped Democrats who question Trump immigration officials on the Obama-era idea. He cited one Democratic chairman who asked a Trump official, “You still keeping kids in cages?” Homan, at the conference hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies, said, “I would answer the question, ‘The kids are being house in the same facility built under the Obama administration.’ If you want to call them cages, call them cages. But if the left wants to call them cages and the Democrats want to call them cages then they have to accept the fact that they were built and funded in FY 2015.”

He said that the Border Patrol facilities where all illegals are initially kept “were not built to take care of children.” In fact, the recent surge of younger illegal immigrants is a new trend. He said that there are no cages but chain-link fencing that separates kids from adults, done for safety. “It’s chain link dividers that keeps children separate from unrelated adults. It’s about protecting children,” he said. What’s more, he said that it is only a holding facility until another agency that is part of Health and Human Services can collect them. But, he said, Congress hasn’t adequately funded HHS. And he said that the humanitarian aid bill working through Congress would help, but he said the House version amounts to “extortion” because it cuts funding for enforcement.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/baracks-ice-chief-cages-were-obamas-idea

Huawei's secret back doors

An investigation of the telecommunications equipment produced by China’s Huawei Technologies Ltd. has uncovered numerous cases of secret access points that could allow Chinese intelligence to conduct cyberoperations through the equipment. Finite State, a cybersecurity research firm, conducted a survey of Huawei equipment and discovered that 55% of Huawei hardware devices it tested contained at least one backdoor access point. '''

The vulnerabilities in Huawei products pose serious security threats of cyberattack and data exfiltration if the equipment is used,''' according to Finite’s report on Huawei published Wednesday.

“The Chinese National Intelligence Law of 2016 requires all companies ‘to support, provide assistance, and cooperate in national intelligence work,’” the report stated. “Even if Huawei may be technically correct in saying that Chinese law doesn’t explicitly ‘compel’ the installation of backdoors, China’s intelligence and counterespionage activities tend to be so expansive that these provisions could be used to justify activities extending well beyond China’s borders.” The report notes that Huawei dominates the global market for next-generation 5G telecommunications infrastructure. The concern is that all data passing through mobile devices, smart homes and other internet-connected devices will become cyberattack vectors if Huawei equipment is used in 5G networks.

Finite reviewed more than 1.5 million files embedded in 9,936 firmware images supporting 558 Huawei enterprise networking products. The review found hard-coded backdoor credentials, unsafe use of cryptographic keys, indicators of insecure software development practices, and the presence of known and zero-day vulnerabilities. A zero-day vulnerability is a hole in software that can be used for cyberattacks. “The results of the analysis show that Huawei devices quantitatively pose a high risk to their users,” the report said. “In virtually all categories we studied, we found Huawei devices to be less secure than comparable devices from other vendors.” Hundreds of cases of back doors were discovered.

One of the ways Huawei set up backdoor remote access is to code firmware of its products with a default username and password that can permit remote access unless changed by computer administrators. In other instances, a specific password was coded into the firmware that would provide easy backdoor access. A third method used a special encryption key coded into the software that would allow remote access to the key holder. The Dutch AIVD intelligence service reported in May that Huawei equipment used by a Dutch telecommunications carrier contained back doors. In January, the African Union reported that Huawei equipment at its headquarters was sending confidential information to China. Vodafone, a large European phone company, also has identified hidden back doors in software inside Huawei products that could provide unauthorized access to networks in Italy.

Huawei and founder Ren Zhengfei, a People’s Liberation Army veteran, deny the company engages in intelligence-gathering for the Chinese government and insist the company’s products are secure. However, the Finite investigation is the first public security assessment of Huawei products. Huawei is facing federal charges related to economic espionage of American cellphone technology and illegal financial dealings with Iran. Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou is facing extradition from Canada on charges of violating international sanctions on trading with Iran. The U.S. government, however, has stopped short of revealing all it knows about the danger of using Huawei equipment. The government has banned use of its products, however.

Michael Wessel, a member of the congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, praised the report. “For years, Huawei has essentially dared the international community to identify the security vulnerabilities that have so often been alleged regarding the use of the company’s products,” Mr. Wessel said in a statement. “Finite State’s report identifies a broad range of significant security vulnerabilities, a substantial portion of which could allow for remote access to their products. “Policymakers now have in their hands information that can be used to debate the advisability of utilizing Huawei products in our systems,” he added. “Finite State’s report removes the discussion from the limited purview of the intelligence and law enforcement communities and opens this up to public debate.”

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jun/26/chinas-back-doors-in-huawei-devices/

>>6856335

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>>6856354

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>>6856364(me) pointing here-→ >>6856369

New U.S. Curbs on China Target Supercomputers

As President Donald Trump prepares to talk trade with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Commerce Department blacklisted five Chinese entities linked to Beijing's large-scale nuclear arms buildup. Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added five Chinese companies and institutes to its "entities list," which is used to block sales of U.S. products to the firms based on threats to American security. The action was announced June 18 and follows similar punitive action in May against Huawei Technologies, the telecommunications conglomerate facing federal charges for economic espionage and illegal financial dealings.

National Security Adviser John Bolton told the Free Beacon earlier this month that Trump would be meeting Xi in Osaka, Japan, at the upcoming G-20 summit set to begin Friday. "Obviously the impasse in the trade talks will be a big issue," Bolton said of the meeting in Japan. "The president believes that China is under pressure and that Xi Jinping will want to make a deal. They need to do a lot in terms of structural reform in the economy. They need to stop pursuing mercantilist policies like stealing our intellectual property and forced technology transfer." The first action taken by Trump was to issue a presidential order last month blocking American companies from buying telecommunications gear from foreign adversaries. The order did not name Huawei, but the company was added to the entities list, a move that has caused severe problems for the company. Huawei is expected to lose $30 billion in revenue from the U.S. sanctions, CNBC reported.

Another Chinese telecom, ZTE, was placed on the entities list last year and nearly went bankrupt but was rescued after an appeal to Trump by Xi to take ZTE off the list. The company was fined instead $1 billion for doing business with Iran. The latest BIS action identified three Chinese companies or institutes engaged in supercomputing development, including Sugon, the Wuxi Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology, and the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT). The decision to sanction the companies, including at least three involved in nuclear explosion simulations, comes as the Defense Intelligence Agency recently accused China of engaging in low-level nuclear tests and rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal. "Sugon has publicly acknowledged a variety of military end uses and end users of its high-performance computers," the Commerce notice said. "Wuxi Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology is owned by the 56th Research Institute of the General Staff of China’s People’s Liberation Army. Its mission is to support China’s military modernization." Those two firms also work with NUDT, which was sanctioned in 2015 for using U.S. components to support supercomputer nuclear explosion simulations and other military simulations. The BIS action increased sanctions on NUDT by adding a front organization used by the university, Hunan Guofang Keji University, to the entities list.

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/new-u-s-curbs-on-china-target-supercomputers/

Nicaraguan Military Arrests Four ISIS Terrorists Planning to Enter U.S. Via Mexico

Four ISIS terrorists planning to enter the United States through Mexico have been captured by the Nicaraguan military in a remote area where the men entered the Central American nation illegally from Costa Rica. Nicaraguan authorities identify the men as two Egyptian nationals—33-year old Mohamed Ibrahim and 26-year-old Mahmoud Samy Eissa—and two Iraqis, 41-year-old Ahmed Ghanim Mohamed Al Jubury and 29-year-old Mustafa Ali Mohamed Yaoob. The men arrived in Panama on May 12 and in Costa Rica on June 9, according to an article published in Nicaragua’s largest newspaper. It appears they had legal permission to enter Costa Rica, which is why Nicaragua deported them back there. Costa Rica’s national security chief, Michael Soto, confirmed the men entered the country legally and were approved by his country’s immigration control officials “with no problem.” Soto also revealed that “confidential information from an unknown source” later alerted Costa Rican officials of the men’s “criminal” ties. Various Mexican media outlets also reported that authorities there were warned that three—instead of four—ISIS operatives were making their way to the United States through Mexico via Central America. Mexico’s largest newspaper covered a press conference in which President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed receiving an alert from the United States about the ISIS terrorists’ plan to enter Mexican territory to reach the American border.

Not surprisingly, the mainstream media has essentially ignored this disturbing story which is simply the latest of many involving Islamic terrorists and the southwest border. Judicial Watch has for years uncovered evidence of Islamic terrorists infiltrating the U.S. through Mexico as part of an ongoing investigation into the national security crisis created by the dangerously porous southern border. Judicial Watch has interviewed local, state and federal law enforcement officials as well as U.S. and Mexican military sources and has traveled to remote Mexican border towns to interview American ranchers. When the Central American caravan got started last fall, Judicial Watch deployed an investigative team to the Guatemala-Honduras border after Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales confirmed that nearly 100 ISIS terrorists had been apprehended in the impoverished Central American nation. Judicial Watch’s reporting has confirmed that ISIS has a training cell just a few miles from El Paso, Texas in an area known as “Anapra” situated just west of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. We also verified that Mexican drug cartels are smuggling foreigners from countries with terrorist links to stash areas in a rural Texas town (Acala) near El Paso. Back in 2014 Judicial Watch reported that four ISIS soldiers, who entered the U.S. through the Mexican border, were arrested in McAllen and Pharr Texas. Two years ago, Judicial Watch exposed a plot involving Mexican drug traffickers that help Islamic terrorists stationed in Mexico cross into the U.S. to explore targets for future attacks. Among the jihadists that travel back and forth through the porous southern border is a Kuwaiti named Shaykh Mahmood Omar Khabir, an ISIS operative who lives in the Mexican state of Chihuahua not far from El Paso. Khabir trained hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen and at the time lived in Mexico for more than a year, according to information provided to Judicial Watch by high-ranking Homeland Security officials. Khabir trains thousands of men—mostly Syrians and Yemenis—to fight in an ISIS base situated in the Mexico-U.S. border region near Ciudad Juárez, the intelligence gathered by Judicial Watch’s sources reveals.

https://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2019/06/nicaraguan-military-arrests-four-isis-terrorists-planning-to-enter-u-s-via-mexico/