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FBI Admits Botching Another Lead on Florida Killer

One month prior to the massacre Wednesday at a South Florida high school, the FBI was warned that 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz might carry out such an attack, but investigators failed to act on the lead, the bureau has admitted.

The FBI said in a statement that it received the tip last month from a person close to Cruz. The teen has been charged with killing 17 people Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

The bureau said the tip should have been pursued “as a potential threat to life,” but “protocols were not followed.”

“We are still investigating the facts,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray in the statement. “I am committed to getting to the bottom of what happened in this particular matter, as well as reviewing our processes for responding to information that we receive from the public.”

As WND reported, the FBI also was alerted in September that someone with the user name Nikolas Cruz posted a comment on YouTube that he aspired to be “a professional school shooter.” Authorities now believe the comment was written by the suspect in the Florida shooting. (Read more from “FBI Admits Botching Another Lead on Florida Killer” HERE)

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White House Security Process ‘Broken’

The nation’s top intelligence officials and national security experts warned yesterday that the White House security clearance process — which allowed a former aide accused of domestic assault to handle classified information — is “broken” and poses a national security threat.

“The process is broken,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told lawmakers at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing yesterday. “It needs to be reformed.”

The warnings came as FBI Director Christopher Wray testified under oath that the White House was given a security assessment of former White House aide Rob Porter nearly a year ago, and again in July and November — contradicting claims by White House officials that they were unaware of abuse allegations by Porter’s ex-wives until last week.

Coats went on to say that in the case of White House officials with interim clearance — a category that reportedly includes dozens of White House staffers including senior aides and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — “access has to be limited in terms of the kind of information they can be in a position to receive or not receive.” (Read more from “White House Security Process ‘Broken'” HERE)

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Trump Proposes Demolishing FBI Headquarters

The latest development in the ongoing war between the White House and the FBI is that the Trump administration is now proposing to demolish the Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C., that serves as FBI headquarters, and to replace it with a new building.

It is a prime piece of real estate. Perhaps Trump can figure out a way to save the taxpayers some money by putting a hotel, condo, or office building on the property, and moving the FBI to somewhere less expensive, like the Virginia or Maryland exurbs, or to some job-thirsty rustbelt location.

Local media in Washington reported that the project could cost up to $2 billion, and that Maryland Senator Cardin and Congressman Steny Hoyer had been pushing to have the FBI relocated to a suburban office park. A report from the General Services Administration, which administers government real estate, to a Senate committee that oversees the topic proposes “a ‘nationally-focused consolidation’ that would move roles that do not need to be conducted in Washington to federally owned sites in Idaho, Alabama and West Virginia,” the Baltimore Sun reported. (Read more from “Trump Proposes Demolishing Fbi Headquarters” HERE)

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‘Fake News Meets OBAMAgate’: Comey Assistant Leaves FBI for CNN

On Friday, a former FBI agent wrote an eye-catching opinion piece in the New York Times, claiming that he had retired from the Bureau because it had received unfair “political attacks” from Republicans in Congress.

Other than its entirely disingenuous premise (alleging Republicans are attacking the FBI as a whole, rather than investigating alleged misdeads under leaders James Comey and Andrew McCabe), the piece leaves out important information.

Nowhere in the opinion article does Campbell reveal the fact that he was James Comey’s special assistant. Campbell presents himself as someone who is unattached to the current political situation, leaving out the fact that he has a huge vested interest in defending Comey.

But it gets worse. Following the op-ed, John Cardillo, a host for The Rebel and former law enforcement officer, claimed that Campbell also left out the fact that he had already accepted an offer to become a CNN analyst.

It appears that Cardillo’s sources were correct. On Monday morning, CNN announced that Campbell had joined the network.

In joining CNN, Campbell has changed his social media information to remove his association with Comey. Prior to joining CNN, Campbell’s Twitter bio had revealed that he served as Comey’s special assistant.

Campbell’s misdirection appears to be borrowing from the tactics of his recent colleague, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. When attempting to get a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign, McCabe swore to the authenticity of the Trump-Russia dossier. He reportedly never told the FISA court judge the fact that the dossier was concocted by political forces who were paid by Hillary Clinton. Similarly, Campbell, in representing himself as a neutral force, has omitted the fact that he served as James Comey’s right-hand man. (For more from the author of “‘Fake News Meets OBAMAgate’: Comey Assistant Leaves FBI for CNN” please click HERE)

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‘Worst Government Abuse Scandal in a Generation’

Does the controversial memo released by the House Intelligence Committee Friday claiming the Justice Department used the infamous unverified “dossier” to obtain permission from a top-secret court to spy on a Trump campaign adviser have any relationship to Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation of alleged Russia-Trump campaign collusion?

That’s the belief of the Washington watchdog organization Judicial Watch, which has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking all of the documents the Justice Department and the FBI submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court “related to alleged collusion between Russia and Trump campaign associates.”

Judicial Watch, calling it possibly “the worst government abuse scandal in a generation,” said the Nunes memo “makes a compelling case that the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court was misled and severely abused by top officials in the Justice Department and FBI.”

“Rather than relying upon dueling summary memos from Republicans and Democrats, the American people should be able to see for themselves the details of how the Obama administration officials (and Rod Rosenstein of the Trump administration) justified spying on the Trump team,” the watchdog group said.

Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee want their own memo, rebutting the Republican majority, to be released. (Read more from “‘Worst Government Abuse Scandal in a Generation'” HERE)

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Uh-Oh: New Texts from Anti-Trump FBI Agents Show They Tried to Evade Rule to Archive Messages

In a new and potentially explosive revelation, the two pro-Clinton, anti-Trump officials at the center of a growing scandal at the agency were eager to “get around” rules requiring the preservation of their phone texts and even sought to get different phones that would make that easier.

What’s more, according to newly released texts between former agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, ignoring the archiving rules was widely accepted throughout the Obama government.

In new texts between the two released Thursday by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Page wrote that she was to get an Apple iPhone, likely from the FBI’s IT director.

Texted Strzok: “Hot damn. I’m happy to pilot that…we get around our security/monitoring issues?”

Page: “No, he’s proposing that we just stop following them. Apparently the requirement to capture texts came from omb, but we’re the only org (I’m told) who is following that rule. His point is, if no one else is doing it why should we.” (Read more from “Uh-Oh: New Texts from Anti-Trump FBI Agents Show They Tried to Evade Rule to Archive Messages” HERE)

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FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe Stepping Down

FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe has reportedly been forced to step down ahead of his planned retirement date.

McCabe, 49, is currently on leave and will officially retire in March, CBS News reported.

The deputy director had come under increased scrutiny following the release of text messages last month between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

In the texts, Strzok described Trump during the 2016 campaign as a “loathsome human” and an “idiot,” and found the prospect of him being president “terrifying.”

Page, Strzok’s mistress, texted him, “There is no way (Trump) gets elected.”

Strzok then replied, “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office … that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk.”

“It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”

“Andy” apparently referred to McCabe.

NBC News reported that McCabe has been with the bureau since 1996, serving under former Directors Robert Mueller and James Comey.

According to NBC, last week, White House spokesman Raj Shah fanned reports of pressure from the White House to fire McCabe, saying in a statement that Trump “believes politically motivated senior leaders” of the FBI “have tainted the agency’s reputation for unbiased pursuit of justice.”

A new director will be appointed to “clean up the misconduct at the highest levels of the FBI.”

Following the release of the original batch of the Strzok/Page texts last month, Trump tweeted that McCabe was trying to hold on until he could retire with full benefits.

In addition to being implicated in the texts as possessing an anti-Trump bias, Republicans have pointed to McCabe’s wife Jill being connected with Hillary Clinton through a nearly $500,000 campaign donation she received in 2015 from Clinton ally Democrat Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe. (For more from the author of “FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe Stepping Down” please click HERE)

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New Texts From Anti-Trump FBI Agents Mention A ‘SECRET SOCIETY’

By Daily Wire. New text messages from anti-Trump FBI agents reviewed by investigators reportedly make reference to a “secret society,” in what could be the nail in the coffin for special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

Investigators have reviewed 50,000 text messages on FBI servers looking for all exchanges between anti-Trump FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page during the 2016 election, Fox News reported. The revelation comes as investigators are seeking the whereabouts of approximately five months’ worth of text messages between Page and Strzok.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy told Fox News on Monday that one of the newly-revealed text messages spoke of a “secret society.”

“The day after the election, the day after what they really, really didn’t want to have happen, there’s a text exchange between [Strzok and Page] … saying, ‘Perhaps this is the first meeting of the secret society,'” Gowdy said. “So, of course I’m going to want to know: What ‘secret society’ are you talking about?”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ Department of Justice is doing everything in its power to retrieve the missing text messages and to get to the bottom of what happened.

(Read more from “New Texts From Anti-Trump FBI Agents Mention A ‘SECRET SOCIETY'” HERE)

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New Texts from FBI Official Removed from Mueller Probe Delivered to Congress

By Laura Jarrett. A new cache of text messages exchanged between two top FBI officials that have come under fire for criticizing then-presidential candidate Donald Trump were delivered to lawmakers on Capitol Hill Friday evening, according to a letter from Republican Sen. Ron Johnson.

The delivery of nearly 400 pages of new text messages sent by FBI officials who were briefly on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team sets up a new chapter in the political swirl of accusations that some members of the FBI working on the Russia probe are biased against Trump.

In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Saturday, Johnson — the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee — described several of the texts that appear to involve the FBI’s handling of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, a subject of investigation for the committee.

In one February 2016 exchange, FBI lawyer Lisa Page calls it “unbelievable” that the 2016 presidential race would come down to Clinton versus Trump. Peter Strzok, who led the investigation of the Clinton email server as the No. 2 official in the FBI’s counterintelligence division, responds, “Now the pressure really starts to finish MYE . . . ,” an apparent reference to “Midyear Exam” — the FBI’s internal case name for the Clinton investigation. (Read more from “New Texts from FBI Official Removed from Mueller Probe Delivered to Congress” HERE)

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Exposed: Inside America’s Multi-Billion Dollar Body Parts Trade

By Brian Grow. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is interviewing former employees of a funeral home whose owner runs a side business on the same premises selling human body parts. . .

One ex-employee, Kari Escher, said she was especially troubled by the practices of Hess’s mother, Shirley Koch, who works at the facility. Escher said Koch, who embalmed and dismembered bodies, pulled teeth from some of the corpses to extract the gold in crowns or fillings.

“She showed me her collection of gold teeth one day,” said Escher, who helped manage a former cremation-marketing business owned by Hess. . .

[N]o federal law governs the sale of cadavers or body parts for use in research or education. Few state laws provide any oversight. That means almost anyone, regardless of expertise, can dissect and sell human remains. . .

There is even more money to be made in dissecting those bodies and selling the parts. A price quote Hess sent to an Arizona medical training lab in 2016 offered torsos for $1,000 each. A pelvis with upper legs went for $1,200, heads for $500, a knee for $250, and a foot for $125, according to a 2013 Donor Services price list reviewed by Reuters. (Read more from “Exposed: Inside America’s Multi-Billion Dollar Body Parts Trade” HERE)

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Funeral Home Runs a Side Business Selling Human Body Parts – and Made So Much Money Selling Dead People’s Gold Teeth That the Owner’s Mother Took the Whole Family to Disneyland

By DailyMail. A Colorado funeral home that also sells human body parts has sparked an FBI probe after its owners were accused of removing gold teeth from dead bodies and selling them before using the money to go to Disneyland.

Keri Escher, an ex-employee of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, told Reuters that she found what Shirley Koch was doing extremely troubling.

Koch works at the funeral home embalming and dismembering bodies. She’s the mother of Megan Hess, the owner.

Escher, who helped manage a former cremation-marketing business run by Hess, said Koch would pull teeth from some of the corpses to extract the gold in crowns or fillings and then sell what she collected.

‘She showed me her collection of gold teeth one day,’ Escher told the outlet. ‘She had sold a different batch a year prior, and they took the whole family to Disneyland in California on the gold that they cashed in.’ (Read more from “Funeral Home Runs a Side Business Selling Human Body Parts – and Made So Much Money Selling Dead People’s Gold Teeth That the Owner’s Mother Took the Whole Family to Disneyland” HERE)

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FBI Agents’ Text Messages Spur Congressional Probe Into Possible News Leaks

Republican-led House and Senate committees are investigating whether leaders of the Russia counterintelligence investigation had contacts with the news media that resulted in improper leaks, prompted in part by text messages amongst senior FBI officials mentioning specific reporters, news organizations and articles.

In one exchange, FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and bureau lawyer Lisa Page engaged in a series of texts shortly before Election Day 2016 suggesting they knew in advance about an article in The Wall Street Journal and would need to feign stumbling onto the story so it could be shared with colleagues.

The text messages, which were reviewed by The Hill, show the two FBI agents discussed how they might make it appear they innocently discovered the article, such as through Google News alerts.

“I can get it like I do every other article that hits any Google News alerts, seriously,” Strzok wrote, adding he didn’t want his team hearing about the article “from someone else.”

Strzok played a key role in the early Russia election meddling probe before he was removed last summer by special counsel Robert Mueller for exchanging text messages critical of President Trump, then still a candidate, with Page. (Read more from “FBI Agents’ Text Messages Spur Congressional Probe Into Possible News Leaks” HERE)

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