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Lawmakers Ask for DOJ Help on Fetal Remains Discovery: ‘This Case Has Countless Victims’

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The following is an excerpt from Blaze Media’s daily Capitol Hill Brief email newsletter:

67 House Republicans called on the Justice Department Tuesday to assist in the investigation of thousands of fetal remains found at a deceased Midwest abortionist’s home.

“We write to you regarding the horrific discovery of more than 2,200 preserved human fetal remains on the Illinois property of the recently deceased abortionist Ulrich ‘George’ Klopfer, who practiced for decades in northern Indiana until 2015,” lawmakers wrote in a letter to Attorney General William Barr. “A careful and thorough investigation of this matter is necessary to ensure justice is done and to prevent such tragic situations from occurring in the future.”

The letter, spearheaded by Indiana Reps. Jackie Walorski and Jim Banks, also asks the Justice Department to look into state laws and practice regarding the disposal of human fetal remains in order to “aid Congress in examining potential legislative remedies to ensure human fetal remains are always treated with dignity.”

“This case has countless victims – both unborn babies and mothers,” the letter concludes, “and represents a grotesque violation of human dignity that American society should not and cannot tolerate.” (For more from the author of “Lawmakers Ask for DOJ Help on Fetal Remains Discovery: ‘This Case Has Countless Victims’” please click HERE)

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Hezbollah Operative Scoped out Times Square, Statue of Liberty for Possible Terrorist Attacks, Prosecutors Say

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Thursday that they have charged a New Jersey man over his support of Hezbollah, a militant Islamist group.

The DOJ announced a nine-count indictment against 42-year-old Alex Saab, alleging that Saab had scoped out iconic New York City landmarks, such as the Statue of Liberty and Times Square, for a terrorist attack.

“Saab served as an operative of Hizballah and conducted surveillance of possible target locations in order to help the foreign terrorist organization prepare for potential future attacks against the United States,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers said in a statement. “Such covert activities conducted on U.S. soil are a clear threat to our national security and I applaud the agents, analysts, and prosecutors who are responsible for this investigation and prosecution.”

Saab is a naturalized citizen, but U.S. attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said that his “true allegiance was to Hizballah, the terrorist organization responsible for decades of terrorist attacks that have killed hundreds, including U.S. citizens and military personnel.” (Read more from “Hezbollah Operative Scoped out Times Square, Statue of Liberty for Possible Terrorist Attacks, Prosecutors Say” HERE)

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FISA Report: Comey, McCabe ‘Predicted’ to Face Criminal Charges

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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., promised that guilty parties will be held accountable after Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz releases his report on the FBI’s alleged abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in the Russia investigation, and predicted that former bureau leaders James Comey and Andrew McCabe will face criminal charges after what he described as an attempted “coup” to take down President Trump.

The report will address concerns with whether or not the FBI acted improperly in obtaining a FISA warrant to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in the early stages of their investigation of Russian election interference and possible Trump campaign connections. The Inspector General’s office has already turned over a draft of its findings to Attorney General Bill Barr, and a final report is expected in the near future.

“We came the closest ever to this country having a coup, and now we need accountability,” McCarthy told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “I respect this attorney general so greatly, that the way he has handled this, he believes in accountability, but more importantly, he believes in the rule of law.” . . .

James Comey and Andrew McCabe, who were the director and deputy director of the FBI when the Russia probe began, have been the subjects of separate IG investigations, and McCarthy believes they will both face consequences.

“We will see an indictment,” he said of McCabe, who is facing the prospect of federal charges after Horowitz faulted him in a separate inquiry over statements he made during a Hillary Clinton-related investigation. The review found that McCabe “lacked candor” when talking with investigators, but the former FBI official has denied wrongdoing. Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu recommended charges against McCabe after the DOJ rejected his appeal. (Read more from “FISA Report: Comey, McCabe ‘Predicted’ to Face Criminal Charges” HERE)

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DOJ Inspector General Has Finished FISA Abuse Investigation

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By Daily Wire. Justice Department (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz has finished his investigation into the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses during the 2016 election committed by then-President Barack Obama’s DOJ and, specifically, the FBI.

Horowitz wrote a letter to congressional leaders to inform them that his team of investigators was in the process of finalizing the report — and preparing to turn it over to the DOJ and FBI so that classified material could be redacted.

Fox News reports: “Horowitz and his investigators have probed how the infamous, anti-Trump dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele was used to secure the original Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant for former Trump aide Carter Page in October 2016, as well as for three renewals. Horowitz’s team has questioned why the FBI considered Steele a credible source, and why the bureau seemed to use news reports to bolster Steele’s credibility.”

“I am writing in connection with the [DOJ] Office of the Inspector General’s ongoing Examination of the [DOJ] and the FBI’s Compliance with Legal Requirements and Policies in Applications Filed with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Relating to a certain U.S. person,” Horowitz wrote in his letter, adding, “the team has reviewed over one million records and conducted over 100 interviews, including several of witnesses who only recently agreed to be interviewed.”

“We have now begun the process of finalizing our report by providing a draft of our factual findings to the [DOJ] and the FBI for classification determination and marking,” Horowitz continued. “This step is consistent with our process for reports such as this one that involve classified material. Once we receive the marked document back from the [DOJ] and the FBI, we will then proceed with our usual process for preparing final draft public and classified reports, and ensuring that appropriate reviews occur for accuracy and comment purposes.”

(Read more from “DOJ Inspector General Has Finished FISA Abuse Investigation” HERE)

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FISA Abuse Investigation Completed

By Washington Examiner. . .Horowitz’s team examined the FISA application and three renewals beginning in October 2016 to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The applications relied on the unverified dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele, who was hired by opposition research firm Fusion GPS and funded by Democrats.

Republicans have alleged the FBI and the Justice Department misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court about the dossier’s Democratic benefactors, which included Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee, and its author’s anti-Trump bias were left out of the FISA applications, and they have demanded accountability. Democrats countered that the FBI acted appropriately, saying the Justice Department and the FBI met the rigor, transparency, and evidentiary basis for probable cause.

Meanwhile, Barr’s “investigation into the investigators” is underway, and the attorney general has said he is working very closely with Horowitz. The inspector general can recommend prosecutions, and U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Barr tasked to lead the review of the origins of the Russia investigation, has the ability to convene a grand jury and subpoena people outside the government.

Collins said his committee “must act swiftly to address concerns outlined in the Inspector General’s report” and implored Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler to hold a hearing with Horowitz and FBI Director Christopher Wray. Nadler, confronted by GOP Rep. Jim Jordan earlier this week, said a hearing with Horowitz will happen at the “appropriate time.”

The FISA filings required approval from top members of the FBI and the Justice Department; targets of Horowitz’s inquiry likely included the approvers of the four applications and renewals: former FBI Director James Comey; former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates; Dana Boente, the only signatory in active government service and currently Trump’s top lawyer at the FBI; then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe; and then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to be special counsel the month before. (Read more from “FISA Abuse Investigation Completed” HERE)

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DOJ Seeks Expedited Executions for Mass Murderers with New Proposal

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The Department of Justice has drafted legislation that would speed up the execution of people convicted of committing mass murder, according to Bloomberg. . .

The proposal is expected to be presented to Congress after August recess as part of a legislative package focused on addressing gun violence.

That package could include measures President Donald Trump has expressed support for in recent weeks, including red flag legislation, stronger background checks, and reforms surrounding diagnosis and treatment of mental health conditions.

There have been three recent mass killings which have revitalized the gun control debate. In two of them, the gunman was killed at the scene. Critics of this proposed legislation have questioned whether the death penalty would be a deterrent for criminals willing to commit a crime that carries a high probability of resulting in their death.

President Trump on Monday, after seven were shot and killed in Odessa, Texas, over the weekend, did not mention stronger background checks in his remarks, something he was supportive of after the mass murders in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas last month.

(Read more from “DOJ Seeks Expedited Executions for Mass Murderers with New Proposal” HERE)

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DOJ Files Petition That Could Strip Federal Immigration Judges’ Union of Bargaining Power

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The Department of Justice is asking for a determination on whether or not federal immigration judges can legally be part of a union in a petition filed to a federal employment board on Friday.

Under federal law, federal employees can form and join bargaining units — i.e., unions — but not if they are “management officials” who are by definition “employed by an agency in a position the duties and responsibilities of which require or authorize the individual to formulate, determine, or influence the policies of the agency,” a DOJ fact sheet says.

A DOJ spokesman told Blaze Media Friday afternoon that the department is asking the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) whether the bargaining certification for the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ) “as the exclusive representative for the bargaining unit of immigration judges, should be revoked because the bargaining unit members are management officials under the statutory definition.”

U.S. immigration courts and judges are under the authority of the Department of Justice, rather than the judicial branch, through the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR). NAIJ is the union that represents 420 of America’s federal immigration judges.

Previously, the NAIJ has pushed back on a 2018 plan to impose quotas and deadlines on judges in response to the courts’ case backlog amid a massive backlog of immigration cases. More recently, the union has lobbied Congress to break its members away from the DOJ oversight.

The DOJ says that the move was to ensure that the department’s employment practices are in line with federal law

“The role and importance of immigration judges in meeting the Department’s mission and determining or influencing its immigration policies have greatly evolved over the past several years,” the DOJ spokesman told Blaze Media via email. “In recognition of that evolution, including changes in the law, the Department of Justice believes appropriate action is necessary to update EOIR’s workforce relations in conformity with the law and to continue to further the Department’s mission.”

From here, the FRLA is expected to open an investigation into the matter with input from both parties, the spokesman added.

This news follows months after the Department of Justice issued a different regulation aimed at streamlining the immigration courts. The rule cemented and codified the attorney general’s power to make binding rulings on immigration cases, in order to make the courts “as efficient or as effective through the process as possible,” a DOJ official said in July. (For more from the author of “DOJ Files Petition That Could Strip Federal Immigration Judges’ Union of Bargaining Power” please click HERE)

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DOJ Preparing to Execute 5 Convicted Murderers: First Federal Executions in 16 Years

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For the first time in almost two decades, the federal government is planning to execute criminals.

According to a Department of Justice press release sent out Thursday morning, Attorney General William Barr has directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to adopt a new addendum to federal protocols “clearing the way for the federal government to resume capital punishment after a nearly two decade lapse” and at the same time has asked BOP’s acting director to schedule the executions of five convicted murderers responsible for truly heinous crimes.

Those set to be executed include:

A man who “emotionally tortured, sexually molested, and then beat to death his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter”

A man who stabbed a 63-year-old grandmother to death and forced her nine-year-old granddaughter to sit beside the lifeless body before slitting the girl’s throat, crushing her head with rocks, and cutting off both victims’ heads and hands

A man who raped and murdered a 16-year-old girl before dismembering, burning, and throwing her remains in a septic pond

A member of a white supremacist group who murdered a family of three

A man who shot 5 people to death

“Congress has expressly authorized the death penalty through legislation adopted by the people’s representatives in both houses of Congress and signed by the President,” Attorney General Barr said in a statement. “Under Administrations of both parties, the Department of Justice has sought the death penalty against the worst criminals, including these five murderers, each of whom was convicted by a jury of his peers after a full and fair proceeding. The Justice Department upholds the rule of law—and we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system.”

The death-row inmates in this situation, according to the release, have been convicted of murdering “the most vulnerable in our society—children and the elderly.”

The last person to be executed by the federal government, as opposed to a state government, was Louis Jones Jr., a Desert Storm veteran convicted of raping and murdering a female soldier by beating her to death with a tire iron in 1995. While Obama stopped short on efforts to put an end to the practice at the federal level in 2015, his administration put a de facto moratorium on executions. (For more from the author of “DOJ Preparing to Execute 5 Convicted Murderers: First Federal Executions in 16 Years” please click HERE)

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Wait…the FBI Was Warned Key Document Used to Investigate Paul Manafort Was Probably Fake?

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We have a Department of Justice Inspector General report that’s about to drop that goes into the alleged FISA abuses. It’s one of the many areas where the investigators of the Russia collusion myth are being placed under the microscope for possible malfeasance. It’s about time. For two years, Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team of die-hard Democrats apparently tried to prove collusion and couldn’t. His exiting presser, which was all but a red flare to House Democrats to start impeachment proceedings, only reinforced that notion. There is a massive witch-hunt aimed at getting President Donald Trump. From this Russian collusion nonsense to tax returns, they’re throwing all of it up against the wall in hoping something will stick. The collusion narrative was their best hope. It blew up in their face when Mueller report said that there was no collusion or conspiracy between the Kremlin or the Trump team during the 2016 election, the language of which Mueller tweaked to make it seem like an open-ended question. It’s not. His report is quite clear on that. . .

So, what’s the latest development? Oh, none other than the FBI being warned that the leading document used to go after Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort might have been fake, which was reported in the press in 2016 citing none other than Mr. Kilimnik. Mr. Solomon has more on the second document that now looks like it could be total trash:

…the “black cash ledger,” remarkably has escaped the same scrutiny, even though its emergence in Ukraine in the summer of 2016 forced Paul Manafort to resign as Trump’s campaign chairman and eventually face U.S. indictment.

In search warrant affidavits, the FBI portrayed the ledger as one reason it resurrected a criminal case against Manafort that was dropped in 2014 and needed search warrants in 2017 for bank records to prove he worked for the Russian-backed Party of Regions in Ukraine.

There’s just one problem: The FBI’s public reliance on the ledger came months after the feds were warned repeatedly that the document couldn’t be trusted and likely was a fake, according to documents and more than a dozen interviews with knowledgeable sources.

(Read more from “Wait…the FBI Was Warned Key Document Used to Investigate Paul Manafort Was Probably Fake?” HERE)

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DOJ Arrests Refugee After Allegedly Planning ISIS Attack on Pittsburgh Christian Church

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The Department of Justice announced Wednesday afternoon the arrest of a 21-year-old Syrian refugee who was allegedly assisting the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) with a terrorist attack targeting a Pittsburgh Christian Church.

According to authorities, Mustafa Mousab Alowemer is a current resident of Pittsburgh but arrived in the United States from war-torn Syria in August 2016. A press release sent out today by the DOJ alleges that Alowemer used various social media and technological communications to coordinate an ISIS-style attack after pledging his support to the Islamic extremist organization.

Apparently, the suspect believed he was speaking with a member of ISIS when he “distributed propaganda materials, offered to provide potential targets in the Pittsburgh area, requested a weapon with a silencer, and recorded a video of himself pledging an oath of allegiance to the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.”

An “FBI Pittsburgh JTTF investigation…revealed that Alowemer plotted to bomb a church located on the North Side of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (the Church), using a weapon of mass destruction” the DOJ said.

“According to Alowemer, his motivation to detonate a device at the Church was to support the cause of ISIS and to inspire other ISIS supporters in the United States to join together and commit similar acts in the name of ISIS. Alowemer also targeted the Church in order to ‘take revenge for our [ISIS] brothers in Nigeria,” the press release continued. (Read more from “DOJ Arrests Refugee After Allegedly Planning ISIS Attack on Pittsburgh Christian Church” HERE)

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Carter Page Says the Mueller Report Only Tells Half the Story

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. . .The Department of Justice inspector general is said to be readying a scorching report on the alleged FISA abuses. It’s expected to be released this summer. At the heart of the Trump-Russia collusion nonsense is Spygate and the FISA warrant secured to monitor Page based off this dossier. First, there’s the allegation that FBI, or the CIA, tried to infiltrate the Trump campaign based on this Russian collusion hysteria. The second part is the FBI citing this dossier as credible evidence to secure a spy warrant on Page. It was renewed three times through 2017. Political opposition research was cited to secure a spy warrant on the rival campaign from the sitting presidential administration of the opposing party during an election year. Yeah, one could argue that’s weaponizing the DOJ to go after your enemies. How much did Obama know? Also, welcome to this circus, State Department.

The officials in the Obama administration knew that this was biased trash days prior to securing the FISA warrant is bad enough. Another odd angle is that this very intelligence community knew Carter Page because he worked with the CIA, the State Department, and the FBI…before he became a Russian traitor or something (via RCP):

“I was asked various questions, not only by State, FBI, etc, but also the CIA,” he said. “I had a long-standing relationship with the CIA going back decades essentially, and I was always very transparent, open.”

“I had a longstanding relationship with the CIA, going back decades, essentially,” Page said. “I was always very transparent, open.”

“Deception by omission,” as some have noted while combing through this report? It wouldn’t be the first time. (Read more from “Carter Page Says the Mueller Report Only Tells Half the Story” HERE)

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