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Growing Scandal: Undercover FBI Agent Paid Thousands Supporting Gillum Fundraiser

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The corruption scandal surrounding Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum continued to grow on Friday as newly-released documents show that an undercover FBI agent, who posed as a developer seeking to do business with Gillum’s Tallahassee government, allegedly paid thousands of dollars to support a fundraiser for Gillum’s political action committee, Forward Florida.

“It is the first piece of evidence linking the ongoing FBI probe to Gillum’s campaign for governor,” the Tallahassee Democrat reported. “The emails and receipts released Friday as part of a supplemental records request from the Florida Commission on Ethics shows that the agent, Mike Miller, was invoiced $4,386 by 101 Restaurant and Mint Lounge, a restaurant owned by lobbyist Adam Corey at the time.” . . .

Forward Florida “was originally set up as a general leadership committee focusing on improving life for Tallahassee and Florida residents, but its mission statement was crafted by Gillum … via city email,” the Tallahassee Democrat noted. “Once Gillum officially announced his candidacy in March 2017, Forward Florida officially became his gubernatorial PAC.”

The dinner fundraiser for Gillum was hosted at Corey’s house and was described in one email as the “first kickoff event” for Gillum’s gubernatorial campaign.

Those attending the dinner had to make a minimum donation of $5,000 person, but Corey arranged a special way for Miller, the undercover FBI agent, to donate to the fundraiser, allowing him to pay for “the cost of the meals and drinks.”

(Read more from “Growing Scandal: Undercover FBI Agent Paid Thousands Supporting Gillum Fundraiser” HERE)

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Analysis: Trump Is Not Responsible for the Actions of a Mentally-Disturbed Supporter

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The biggest story of the day is the arrest of a Florida man, in connection with the series of mail bombs sent to prominent critics of President Trump. In addition to reportedly having a criminal record for minor offenses and threats, the suspect appears to be a mentally unstable and cartoonishly-fanatical Trump supporter. This is unsurprising information. As I wrote yesterday, based on the identities of the bomb targets, Occam’s Razor suggested that these acts of terrorism were politically-motivated. It now seems likelier than ever that they were. Allow me to make a handful of non-mutually-exclusive observations:

(1) Our country would be better off if our public officials and other prominent political figures debated issues with more substance, greater civility, and less hysteria. This very much applies to the president, who likes to claim — among other things — that his opponents “favor” or “love” ruthless gangs who murder Americans. It also very much applies to Democrats, who frequently frame Republican proposals as world-ending, or tantamount to mass killings.

(2) Overheated partisan rhetoric that falls well short of direct incitement to violence can be grotesque and counter-productive, but it should not be blamed for the actions of disturbed people. It’s possible, if not likely, that this bomber heard Trump’s words and decided to take it upon himself to punish or eliminate Trump’s opponents. If so, that’s a reflection on the bomber’s evilness or mental illness, not Trump. Similarly, it’s quite likely that the Congressional baseball shooter heard the words of numerous high-profile leftists and decided he needed to save the country by assassinating Republicans. That was a reflection on the shooter’s evilness or mental illness, not the leftists he followed or favored.

(3) Demands that politicians and commentators calibrate their language in order to prevent depraved and insane people from engaging in depraved and insane conduct is more likely to harm free speech, or be exploited to disqualify legitimate political dissent as “dangerous,” than it is to achieve that ostensible goal. Crazy people find reasons and imagine “cues” to do crazy things; the argument that non-incitement speech might push someone over the edge strikes me as slippery and specious. Couldn’t something as simple as politician X alleging that politician Y is “hurting America” have this effect? The threshold for ‘triggering’ harmful impulses in the mind of a deranged person is unknowable, inconsistent and subjective. We therefore cannot shape our rules for discourse based upon that standard — even if we agree that our broader discourse needs serious rehabilitation.

(Read more from “Analysis: Trump Is Not Responsible for the Actions of a Mentally-Disturbed Supporter” HERE)

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There’s Another Explanation for Peter Strzok’s March 2016 Texts Than Setting up Trump

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Yesterday, George Papadopoulos suggested in a tweet that text messages between disgraced former FBI agent Peter Strzok and his colleague and “companion,” FBI attorney Lisa Page, implicated Joe Mifsud in the plot to spy on the Trump campaign.

As the former Trump campaign advisor noted in the tweet, he first met Mifsud—the supposed Russian agent who later told Papadopoulos the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton—in Rome on March 14, 2016.

Papadopoulos later passed Mifsud’s claim to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer over drinks in a London bar. Then, following WikiLeaks’ release of the Democratic National Committee emails in July 2016, the FBI pegged Papadopoulos’ statement to Downer as evidence that Trump operatives had foreknowledge of WikiLeaks’ hack. The FBI responded by launching Crossfire Hurricane on July 31, 2016, to investigate the Trump campaign’s supposed collusion with Russia.

However, over the last year, the FBI’s proffered explanation for launching Crossfire Hurricane has fallen apart. Similarly, contrary to Democrats’ attempts to portray Mifsud as a Russian agent, the evidence instead suggests that Mifsud has various connections with Western intelligence agencies. These revelations, coupled with the FBI’s admitted use of sources connected to the Trump campaign, led many to surmise that Mifsud was working as an informant, feeding information to Papadopoulos in order to entrap Trump.

Papadopoulos sees the messages exchanged between Strzok and Page as confirmation of this theory, stressing that on March 16, 2016, the FBI colleagues exchanged texts stating: “Our guy is talking,” and “Rock on.” Again, Papadopoulos first met Mifsud on March 14, 2016, and as he made clear in a second tweet, he met with Mifsud from March 14 to 16, 2016. (Read more from “There’s Another Explanation for Peter Strzok’s March 2016 Texts Than Setting up Trump” HERE)

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DNC Lawyers Met With Top FBI Official Before Spy Warrant Targeting Trump Campaign Was Issued

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Well, the Kavanaugh fight is over. Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh survived a vicious character assassination campaign executed by the Left. The scars will remain indefinitely, which is tragic, but in the end—we won. Conservatives won a generational victory. We have a solid majority on the Supreme Court. Now, back to matters that you might have missed due to all the left-wing histrionics over this Supreme Court fight.

We learned from The Hill’s John Solomon that prior to a spy warrant being issued that targeted the Trump campaign, a top Federal Bureau of Investigation official met with Democratic National Committee lawyers. The point is, and what some have already alleged, is that the FBI knew that the so-called Trump dossier was still largely unverified, but it was still used to secure a FISA warrant against former foreign policy adviser Carter Page.

The attorneys in question were part of Perkins Coie, a Democratic law firm the Hillary Clinton campaign used to solicit the services of Fusion GPS, who then hired former British spook Christopher Steele to compile dirt on Trump:

Congressional investigators have confirmed that a top FBI official met with Democratic Party lawyers to talk about allegations of Donald Trump-Russia collusion weeks before the 2016 election, and before the bureau secured a search warrant targeting Trump’s campaign.

Former FBI general counsel James Baker met during the 2016 season with at least one attorney from Perkins Coie, the Democratic National Committee’s private law firm.

(Read more from “DNC Lawyers Met With Top FBI Official Before Spy Warrant Targeting Trump Campaign Was Issued” HERE)

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Dem Senator on Kavanaugh’s FBI Report: It’s a Cover up by the Trump White House

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Well, there you have it, folks. Democrats are now saying the FBI report on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s sexual misconduct allegations is not acceptable because it doesn’t confirm all the smears they’ve lobbed against him. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said, “The most notable part of this report is what’s not in it.” Yeah, that’s because all three allegations have zero evidence and no corroborating witnesses. It’s what we’ve known all week, but Democrats wanted an FBI investigation, and they got one when Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) decided to side with them in that effort.

Flake voted to advance the nomination to the Senate floor, but asked that a weeklong delay occur in order for the FBI to look into these allegations. It’s done. And we all knew Democrats wouldn’t accept the report. This was all part of their delay antics, which are now coming to an end. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell invoked cloture, meaning we could see a final vote come Saturday. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-MA), however, seems to think the FBI report is part of a cover-up (via The Hill):

Markey said on “CNN Newsroom” that the bureau’s investigation, which did not include interviews with Kavanaugh or Christine Blasey Ford, the first woman to publicly accuse him of sexual assault, made a “mockery” of the Senate.

“It’s obviously a cover-up,” he said, as senators took turns reviewing a single copy of the final FBI report throughout the morning.

(Read more from “Dem Senator on Kavanaugh’s FBI Report: It’s a Cover up by the Trump White House” HERE)

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Clinton Lawyer Gave FBI Documents for Russia Probe

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A top lawyer working with the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign contacted the FBI’s general counsel in late 2016 and provided documents for the Russia probe as federal investigators prepared a surveillance warrant for Trump campaign aide Carter Page, sources close to a congressional investigation told Fox News, citing new testimony.

The FBI official who was contacted, James Baker, revealed the exchange to congressional investigators during a closed-door deposition Wednesday. He said Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann initiated contact with him and provided documents as well as computer storage devices on Russian hacking. The sources said Baker described the contact as unusual and the “only time it happened.”

Perkins Coie was a key player in the funding of the controversial anti-Trump dossier, which Republicans have long suspected helped fuel the FBI’s investigation. The DNC and Clinton campaign had hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS in April 2016, through Perkins Coie, to dig into Trump’s background. Fusion, in turn, paid British ex-spy Christopher Steele to compile the dossier, memos from which were shared with the FBI in the summer of 2016.

Sussmann’s contact with Baker suggests another connection between the early stages of the FBI’s Russia probe and those working with the DNC and Clinton campaign. Sussmann’s bio on the Perkins Coie website describes him as a former senior Justice Department official with extensive national security and cybersecurity experience: “[Sussmann] is engaged on some of the most sophisticated, high-stakes matters today, such as his representation of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in their responses to Russian hacking in the 2016 presidential election.” (Read more from “Clinton Lawyer Gave FBI Documents for Russia Probe” HERE)

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FBI Lacks White House Approval to Talk to Kavanaugh and Ford

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By Bloomberg. The FBI hasn’t interviewed Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh or Christine Blasey Ford because it doesn’t have clear authority from the White House to do so, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

Instead, the White House has indicated to the FBI that testimony from Kavanaugh and Ford, who has accused him of attempting to rape her when they were in high school, before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week is sufficient, said the people, who asked to not be identified discussing the sensitive matter.

On Wednesday night, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell started the clock for a Friday test vote on the nomination. McConnell said that the Senate “would receive the results” of the FBI’s inquiry into the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh on Wednesday night.

A tentative plan for viewing the report is that a single copy will be available in a secure room for senators to view starting Thursday morning, at one-hour intervals alternating between Republicans and Democrats, according to a person briefed on the matter. . .

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation was trying to force the issue and seek explicit approval from the White House to interview Ford and Kavanaugh. And it wasn’t clear why the FBI hasn’t yet talked to other people who have been recommended by lawyers or who have voluntarily come forward — or if the bureau would need explicit approval to talk with them as well. (Read more from “FBI Lacks White House Approval to Talk to Kavanaugh and Ford” HERE)

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White House Says FBI Report Supports Kavanaugh Confirmation

By Washington Post. The White House said early Thursday morning that it had received the FBI’s completed report on Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh and that it was “fully confident” that the Senate would vote to confirm President Trump’s nominee to the nation’s top court.

Raj Shah, deputy White House press secretary, said the report, which Democrats have denounced as hasty and incomplete, marked “the last addition to the most comprehensive review of a Supreme Court nominee in history, which includes extensive hearings, multiple committee interviews, over 1,200 questions for the record and over a half million pages of documents.”

In three tweets, the first published at 2:24 a.m. Thursday, Shah said lawmakers will have had “ample time” to review the results of the latest probe by the time they vote on Friday, according to a schedule set into motion Wednesday by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Senators will be able to review the report at a secure facility at the Capitol beginning Thursday.

(Read more from “White House Says FBI Report Supports Kavanaugh Confirmation” HERE)

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Kavanaugh Critics: FBI Needs to Investigate What ‘Boofing’ Means

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With the unsubstantiated allegations against Brett Kavanaugh continuing to pile up, some of his critics have zeroed in on a new gotcha on the SCOTUS nominee: the meaning of the words “boof” and “Devil’s Triangle” in his high school yearbook.

Even though the words “boof” and “Devil’s Triangle” may very well have had an entirely different meaning to a bunch of D.C. suburban teens in the early-’80s, Kavanaugh’s critics are promoting the narrative on social media that Kavanaugh lied under oath regarding the meaning of those terms. According to these critics, the “Devil’s Triangle” is not a drinking game, as Kavanaugh asserted during his testimony, but rather sex acts involving two guys and one girl; “Boof” refers to, well, something very NC-17; “Renate Alumnus” really was code for “I tapped that.”

Setting aside the problematic notion of combing through a high school yearbook and decoding inside jokes, for Kavanaugh to openly brag about it suggests a personality that was not only flippant but gleefully pernicious. Remember, many of those spreading this theory are the same people who have readily accepted that Kavanaugh was running a “gang rape” ring at age 15.

Politico is lending their weight to promoting the theory. In a piece published by Politico, Brian Fallon and Chris Kang, co-founders of a progressive group opposing Kavanaugh’s nomination, call for the FBI to fully probe the meaning of a 17-year-old teen’s reference to “boofing.”

The article, of course, neglects to mention the fact that over 60 women and several of Kavanaugh’s classmates have openly rejected the portrait that Ford and Ramirez have painted of him, both of whom have failed to identify a single witness that can corroborate their accounts. For his critics, their uncorroborated accounts are more truthful than Kavanaugh’s assertion that “boofing” referred to flatulence and “Devil’s Triangle” was a drinking game. (Read more from “Kavanaugh Critics: FBI Needs to Investigate What ‘Boofing’ Means” HERE)

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FBI: Murders, Violent Crimes Dipped in 2017

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By Washington Examiner. The number of murders and other violent crimes committed dipped slightly last year, according to new crime statistics released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday.

The number of cases of manslaughter and murder decreased 0.7 percent in 2017 from the previous year, the data show. And though rapes rose 3 percent and aggravated assault rose 1 percent, overall violent crimes dropped 0.2 percent — numbers that suggest the rise of crime in recent years is ending.

“Crime declined nationwide last year, consistent with our earlier analyses of 2017 data in the nation’s 30 largest cities,” Ames Grawert, senior counsel for the Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, said in a statement. “That’s the good news. The bad news is that even while crime is falling, the number of Americans incarcerated remains near-record highs. Now is the time to address the problem.” (Read more from “FBI: Murders, Violent Crimes Dipped in 2017” HERE)

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Detroit No Longer Nation’s Most Violent City, According to FBI Crime Stats

By Michigan Live. Detroit has made its way out of the top spot on the list of the nation’s most violent cities, according to the most recently released 2017 FBI crime data.

According to the statistics reported to the FBI by police agencies across the nation, St. Louis is now the most violent city, per capita, with more than 50,000 residents in the U.S. Flint ranked sixth, based on 2017 data.

Rounding out the top five are Baltimore, Memphis and Camden, New Jersey, respectively. (Read more from “Detroit No Longer Nation’s Most Violent City, According to FBI Crime Stats” HERE)

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Watch: CNN Interview Goes Bad as Ex-FBI Asst. Director Savages Ford Accusations

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A CNN interview on Wednesday with former FBI assistant director Chris Swecker didn’t work out quite the way the network was probably hoping after Swecker said the recent accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh would not hold up in court.

CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin asked Swecker a series of questions regarding the FBI’s involvement with the accusations of sexual assault made by California university professor Christine Blasey Ford against Kavanaugh. . .

Swecker confirmed during the CNN interview that the FBI won’t handle the case.

“The FBI has no independent jurisdiction to open up a stand-alone investigation of rape allegations or assault allegations that may have taken place 36 years ago,” Swecker said. “That’s a local crime. Unless it involves a federal official or on federal land, or has some federal nexus, there’s just no jurisdiction to do it.”

“There just can’t be any forensic evidence. I would be shocked if they brought a garment forward that might have DNA or something like that,” Swecker said.

Swecker went on to say that the evidence would be “strictly interviews” of the alleged victim, the alleged perpetrator, anyone else who might have been at the party, her therapist or anyone else she may have confided in about the incident. (Read more from “Watch: CNN Interview Goes Bad as Ex-FBI Asst. Director Savages Ford Accusations” HERE)

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