Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley fired off a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Wednesday questioning numerous probes into acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and asking whether investigators have found any political conflicts from these inquiries.

In his letter to Rosenstein, Grassley reminded him that he already asked about McCabe’s apparent conflict of interests due to his close relationship with Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, among other issues, and then pointed out that McCabe appears to be the focus of three separate pending investigations.

“First, the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General is examining his failure to recuse himself from the Clinton investigation due to his political relationship with McAuliffe. Second, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is investigating allegations that he violated the Hatch Act by engaging in political campaign activities,” Grassley wrote.

“Third, he is also reportedly the subject of a pending Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaint by a female FBI agent for sex discrimination, who alleges she was targeted for retaliation because of her complaint,” he added.

Chairman Grassley cited a new report by Circa News that says former Trump National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was the subject of retaliation from the FBI for supporting the female FBI agent through an official letter during the case. (Read more from “Grassley Demands Answers on Acting FBI Director’s ‘Apparent’ Conflicts of Interest” HERE)

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The FBI is holding a press conference Wednesday morning to announce the results of its investigation into last week’s attempted mass assassination of Republican lawmakers and staffers, the agency announced on Tuesday.

FBI Assistant Director in Charge Andrew Vale and Special Agent in Charge Timothy Slater will be joined by Alexandria Police Chief Michael Brown, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Matthew Verderosa and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Special Agent in Charge Michael Boxler.

The Daily Caller was the first to report last week that FBI officials discovered a list of Republican lawmakers in James T. Hodgkinson’s possession when he opened fire at a congressional baseball practice, wounding four people including Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise. All six lawmakers on the list were members of the House Freedom Caucus — the most conservative members in the lower chamber.

The FBI also recovered a cell phone and computer from Hodgkinson’s van at the scene, the agency announced last Thursday. (Read more from “FBI Making Big Announcement in GOP Baseball Shooting Investigation” HERE)

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President Donald Trump has begun to move on naming federal judges and will eventually be naming a new FBI director, but more broadly, he remains slow in filling political appointments compared to his predecessors.

Trump has made 85 nominations to the Senate at this point in his presidency as of Friday, according to the Center for Presidential Transition, which tracks presidential appointees. In that same period of his first term, President Barack Obama made 212 nominations, President George W. Bush made 161 nominations, President Bill Clinton made 182 nominations, and President George H. W. Bush made 135 nominees by this point.

Trump, so far, is leaving key management positions unfilled, said Mallory Barg Bulman, vice president of research and evaluation at the Partnership for Public Service, the parent organization to the Center for Presidential Transition.

“Leadership matters a lot, as does having the right people in place,” Bulman told The Daily Signal. “You can’t start the game until the whole team is on the field.”

Trump has no nominee for 460 of the 557 key leadership positions, as of Friday, according to Partnership for Public Service. Trump has nominated 49, announced the nomination of 19, and 29 people have been confirmed.

Earlier this week, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the administration is taking time to vet employees.

“We’re actually going through the Office of Government Ethics and FBI clearances before announcing most of these individuals,” Spicer said at the Monday press briefing. “And so, there’s a little bit of a difference in how we’re doing this. But we are well on pace with respect to many of these [appointments] to get the government up and running.”

Trump has not yet even named a director to run the Office of Personnel Management, which manages the federal workforce, noted Robert Moffit, a former assistant OPM director under President Ronald Reagan.

“The bottom line is that the president can’t run the federal government out of the White House and secretaries can’t run giant agencies huddled in an executive suite,” Moffit, now a senior fellow for health policy at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “Unilateral disarmament is a victory for the swamp. The swamp creatures have won the fight. Unless you control the bureaucracy, the bureaucracy controls you.”

Moffit, who also worked in the Reagan administration’s Department of Health and Human Services, said Reagan took control of the federal bureaucracy shortly into his presidency.

He said congressional relations is a key area where political appointees should be working, instead of leaving it to career civil service employees in some cases. That’s because, Moffit stressed, it’s the job of the career civil service employees to execute administration policy but the job of political appointees to advocate and explain those policies to Congress.

The president can name about 4,000 political appointees.

Out of that, 1,242 are key leadership positions that need Senate confirmation, according to the Partnership for Public Service. Another 472 political appointees—largely White House staff—don’t require Senate confirmation, according to the partnership. Further, 761 non-career senior executive positions can be filled throughout the executive branch—though not all are presidential appointees. Finally, 1,538 non-career federal employees report directly to a presidential appointee.

The partnership did not have a final number on how many of these positions are filled or unfilled, because it only tracks key leadership positions—most of which require Senate confirmation.

The White House Transition Project measures a different metric, but still finds Trump well behind other presidents going back through Reagan. Trump officially fell behind in March, said Terry Sullivan, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the executive director of the project.

Rather than measuring 4,000 jobs, which includes all U.S. marshals, U.S. attorneys, and every inconsequential U.S. ambassador, the White House Transition Project looks primarily at 221 government appointments that are required for the essential function of government, have policy roles, and have the potential to be controversial, Sullivan said.

“This is not a result of a policy predisposition to shrinking government,” Sullivan told The Daily Signal. “He wants a tax cut but he isn’t staffing up the Treasury Department. He doesn’t want more EPA regulations, but he isn’t moving slower or faster with that agency than Veterans Affairs or Health and Human Services, things he cares about.” (For more from the author of “Here’s How Far Behind Trump Is on Political Appointments Compared to Obama, Bush” please click HERE)

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Two weekend stories are raising further questions of the role politics played in both the criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email abuses and the investigation into Donald Trump’s alleged Russian ties. If J. Edgar Hoover could see these stories he would roll over in his gown.

50 Gs for the Trump Dossier?

The New York Times reported Saturday that the FBI was willing to pay $50,000 to the source of a dossier on Donald Trump containing information gathered by former British spy Christopher Steele. This dossier, which has since been discredited, includes allegations of sexual antics by Trump in Moscow and talk of ties to Putin.

As the Daily Caller reports in a story dated April 22,

A July 19 memo from Steele’s dossier alleges that the Trump campaign used (advisor Carter) Page as an intermediary in a “well-developed conspiracy” [with Russians] to help Trump during the election. The source of that claim has since been identified as Sergei Millian, a Belarusian-American businessman who has a history of exaggerating his business ties.

The Bureau wanted corroboration. If Steele delivered, he’d get the 50 G’s. (Talk about G-men!) However the ex-MI6 agent was never paid, the Times says.

Never paid by the FBI would be more accurate. As reported by The Stream, Steele is an “opposition researcher.” After a stint collecting dirt for Trump’s GOP opponents, Steele was hired by Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm aiding Hillary Clinton.

So not only was the FBI willing to lap up allegations from an opposition researcher tied to Hillary Clinton, they were willing to shell out $50,000 tax dollars if he could confirm the allegations. Since the Feds didn’t pay Steele, the Daily Caller speculates that perhaps he could not confirm the information.

End of story, right? Wrong.

The FBI reportedly relied on Steele’s dossier last September when seeking a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against Page. That gets us into the whole gathering of intel on Trump associates. This leads to the dubious unmasking of names, the definitely illegal leaking and all the rest. A scandal that curiously has vanished from the airwaves quicker than Bill O’Reilly.

What’s more, The Washington Post reports the relationship between Steele and the FBI ended because the dossier “became the subject of news stories, congressional investigations and presidential denials.” For those not fluent in translating liberal media-speak, let me help: “They got caught.

The Stream has laid out how the dossier’s arrival at the FBI curiously lines up with Bill Clinton’s not-so-secret rendezvous with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch. To refresh:

Steele crafts an anti-Trump dossier for his client, the Clinton-backing Fusion GPS.

Seems logical Fusion GPS would share it with their client.

June 27: The client’s husband secretly huddles with Loretta Lynch at the Phoenix airport.

July 5: Steele brings the dossier to the FBI.

July 5: James Comey says he’s going to let Hillary skate for the ” extremely careless” mishandling of highly classified documents.

By month’s end, the FBI is instead investigating Trump and his associates.

Why bring up Lynch? Because somebody was playing politics with FBI investigations last year. But don’t believe me. Ask FBI Director James Comey.

Comey Worried Lynch was Playing Politics with His Clinton Investigation

James Comey didn’t trust Lynch when it came to the Clinton investigation so he kept her out of the loop. According to The New York Times:

… this go-it-alone strategy was shaped by his distrust of senior officials at the Justice Department, who he and other F.B.I. officials felt had provided Mrs. Clinton with political cover. The distrust extended to his boss, Loretta E. Lynch, the attorney general, who Mr. Comey believed had subtly helped play down the Clinton investigation.

What does “subtly helped play down” mean?

How to “Subtly Play Down”

On July 10, 2015, the FBI launched a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email activities. However, the next morning Lynch’s Justice Dept. insisted “it is not a criminal referral.” Hillary would use the distinction without a difference to falsely declare she was not under criminal investigation. “It’s a security review,” she would say.

In September, Comey met with Lynch before testifying on Capitol Hill. He would not reveal details of the investigation, of course. But Lynch went further. She pushed him to refer to the case as a “matter,” not an “investigation.” Comey felt Lynch was “asking him to be misleading and line up his talking points with Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.” One prosecutor ribbed Comey, “I guess you’re the Federal Bureau of Matters now.”

Fast forward to the weeks before the election. Agents find tens of thousands of Hillary emails on Anthony Weiner’s computer. Comey felt it was his duty to tell Congress. He knew failing to do so would lead to accusations he had been withholding information before the election. Lynch was dead set against telling Congress about the emails. However, in the end, she decided against ordering him not to send the letter.

That’s the Times‘ idea of subtly playing down.

Apparent confirmation of Comey’s suspicions came from a document seized from a Russian hacker. It was written by a Democratic operative who expressed confidence that Lynch would stop the Clinton investigation from going too far.

Meanwhile …

Hillary Clinton made a surprise appearance at the Tribeka Film Festival Saturday night. She talked about elephant poaching.

Which gets to our final point: Even the talented filmmakers at Tribeka could not make any of these characters and intrigue up. (For more from the author of “FBI Stories: Comey Didn’t Trust Lynch, FBI Willing to Pay $50,000 for Trump Dossier” please click HERE)

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