A former federal investigator enlists his son to infiltrate a Muslim front in the nation’s capital that had routinely collaborated with the White House and federal law-enforcement agencies as a “civil rights” group.
The daring undercover operation results in the capture of 12,000 pages of incriminating internal documents along with audio and video recordings, attracting the interest of the FBI and congressional investigators.
The evidence is compiled in one volume that draws the praise of a member of Congress who declares: “Now we have proof – from the secret documents that this investigative team has uncovered, coupled with the ones recently declassified by the FBI – that [radical Islamic] agents living among us have a plan in place, and they are successfully carrying out that subversive plan.”
But the Muslim front group, funded by wealthy Saudi donors and other foreign sources, files a lawsuit against the investigators, charging its “reputation” was damaged. Lacking any grounds to rebut the overwhelming evidence that it actually is a Muslim Brotherhood front, the group amends it complaint then prolongs the case through frivolous motions until finally, after eight years, a trial is set to be scheduled.
While it might sound like a Hollywood script, it’s the true story of a WND Books co-author and his son who have been sued by the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations in a case that has moved to a trial likely to begin this fall in the nation’s capital. (Read more from “Trial to Expose Radical Islamic Agents Embedded in U.S.” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/us-capitol-1273914_960_720.jpg720960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-08-22 22:39:252017-08-22 22:39:25Trial to Expose Radical Islamic Agents Embedded in U.S.
It’s become a near-weekly occurrence. Somewhere in some state, the FBI will announce that they’ve foiled yet another terrorist plot and saved lives. However, as the data shows, the majority of these cases involve psychologically diminished patsies who’ve been entirely groomed, armed, and entrapped by FBI agents. Simply put, the FBI manufactures terror threats and then takes credit for stopping them.
While many of these cases have garnered attention and been exposed in the alternative media, a recent case out of Oklahoma sets a new low for FBI and exposes how insidious these plots can be.
Through the hundreds of ‘foiled terror plots’ the FBI has ‘busted’ over the years, many of them have been focused on people of Middle Eastern descent or people associated with ISIS or Al Qaeda. This time, in the case of Jerry Drake Varnell, the 23-year-old diagnosed schizophrenic, accused of attempting to bomb a bank, the FBI fomented terror from a right wing dialogue.
In a June meeting with the agent, according to FBI documents, Varnell described himself as a believer in “Three Percenter” ideology, a right wing group claiming to be committed to standing against and exposing corruption and injustice.
According to federal documents, Varnell drove what he believed was a stolen van containing a 1,000-pound ammonium nitrate bomb on Saturday morning to blow up an Oklahoma City bank. Vile, indeed.
However, if we backtrack just a bit, to when the FBI began grooming their would-be right wing militia terrorist, the vileness comes directly from the government.
“The FBI knew he was schizophrenic,” Varnell’s parents declared on Wednesday in an open letter bravely published by NewsOK.
Underneath his condition, he is a sweet-hearted person and we are extremely shocked that this event has happened. However, what truly has us flabbergasted is the fact that the FBI knew he was schizophrenic. The State of Oklahoma found him mentally incompetent and we, his parents have legal guardianship over him by the Court. These documents are sealed from the public, which is why no news media outlet has been able to obtain them. The FBI clearly knew that he was schizophrenic because they have gathered every ounce of information on him.
Yet they knowingly continued to groom him, despite the clear immoral implications.
When they began grooming him, according to the family, the FBI knew that Varnell was declared mentally unfit to live by himself and that he was a paranoid schizophrenic. Without their criminal informant and the FBI tactics playing mind games with this vulnerable man, the idea of him committing an act of terror would have likely never materialized.
What the public should be looking at is the fact that the FBI gave our son the means to make this happen. He has no job, no money, no vehicle, and no driver’s license, due to the fact that he is schizophrenic and we; his parents do everything we can possible to keep him safe and functional….. He has suffered through countless serious full-blown schizophrenic delusional episodes and he has been put in numerous mental hospitals since he was 16 years old. The FBI came and picked him up from our home, they gave him a vehicle, gave him a fake bomb, and every means to make this happen none of which he had access to on his own.
The parents noted that during the setup they suspected something was going on and Jerry’s father told the informant to stay away from their son. However, according to the parents, the informant “continued to sneak onto our residence. The FBI paid him to continue this operation and I believe they have cleared his criminal record.”
Because they knew Varnell had severe mental disabilities, the FBI should have had stopped their plans to do this and immediately sought an option of hospitalization. However, they pressed on.
The FBI should have filed conspiracy on our son and had him committed to a mental institution. They should not have aided and abetted a paranoid schizophrenic to commit this act. There are many more facts that I will not make public that will support my son and the disturbing acts made by the FBI.
I realize that many will say my son could have found another person to commit this act. Yet, any person that has access to the materials and the state of mind necessary to bomb a building would not have any need for a schizophrenic who has no resources to contribute.
Clifford and Melonie Varnell, Jerry’s parents make a powerful point. No one — other than the FBI — would’ve attempted to get a schizophrenic man with nothing to contribute to do their bidding as it would most likely be a futile effort — unless you are the FBI looking for an easy patsy to keep fear alive.
David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps intelligence officer, the second-highest-ranking civilian in the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer, had this to say about these most unscrupulous operations:
Most terrorists are false flag terrorists, or are created by our own security services. In the United States, every single terrorist incident we have had has been a false flag, or has been an informant pushed on by the FBI. In fact, we now have citizens taking out restraining orders against FBI informants that are trying to incite terrorism. We’ve become a lunatic asylum.
Indeed, we’ve become a lunatic asylum.
(For more from the author of “Parents Catch FBI in Plot to Force Mentally Ill Son to Be a Right Wing Terrorist” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/1280px-Flag_of_the_United_States_Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation.svg-1.png7681280Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-08-18 00:09:272017-08-20 00:22:39Parents Catch FBI in Plot to Force Mentally Ill Son to Be a Right Wing Terrorist
One of the FBI officials recently brought onto the Trump-Russia investigation being conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller has left the team, according to a new report.
ABC News is reporting that Peter Strzok left the position for unknown reasons. He is now working in the FBI’s human resources department. It is unclear why the move was made.
CNN reported last month that Mueller had picked Strzok to manage the ever-expanding investigation into possible collusion between members of the Trump campaign and Russian government.
The probe has expanded to include possibly illegal business activities involving former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. (Read more from “Why Did One of Mueller’s Investigators Leave the Trump-Russia Probe?” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Robert_S._Mueller_official_portrait.jpg18951500Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-08-16 14:57:242017-08-20 01:03:04Why Did One of Mueller’s Investigators Leave the Trump-Russia Probe?
Former FBI Director James Comey’s actions in leaking to the media his own memos about meetings with President Donald Trump were not in keeping with how the Department of Justice operates, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said Wednesday.
During a Fox News interview, Rosenstein said he would not directly address Comey’s actions. However, he was forthright when asked by Martha MacCallum on The Story whether he would ever consider it proper for an FBI director to leak notes to the media regarding a meeting with a president.
“As a general proposition, you have to understand the Department of Justice. We take confidentiality seriously, so when we have memoranda about our ongoing matters, we have an obligation to keep that confidential,” Rosenstein said.
Rosenstein also said the principle of confidentiality is basic to the work of the Department of Justice.
“I think it is quite clear,” he said. “It’s what we were taught, all of us prosecutors and agents.”
During the interview, he also defended hiring special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, something Trump has denied for months.
“I’ve got to explain that I made the decision to appoint Director Mueller based upon his reputation. He had an excellent reputation. Really bipartisan support for his integrity. That’s why I made that decision,” Rosenstein said. “But I can assure you that if there were conflicts that arose because of Director Mueller or anybody employed by Director Mueller, we have a process within the department to take care of that.”
Rosenstein said Mueller’s probe should be judged once it completes its work.
“The Department of Justice, we judge by results, and so my view about that is, we’ll see if they do the right thing,” Rosenstein said.
Comey said he believed the memos he wrote were his to do with as he pleased, but the FBI has indicated it has a different view. Four of the seven memos Comey wrote contained classified information, the FBI has told Congress.
FBI policy forbids an agent from sharing classified information without prior written permission, and all records created during official duties are government property.
Columbia University professor Daniel Richman, a Comey friend who leaked part of one memo to The New York Times, has said no rules were broken.
“No memos were given to the press, and no memos were classified at the time I received them,” Richman said, adding that the physical memo was never shared, only its “substance.” (For more from the author of “Comey Went Outside FBI Protocol With Leaks” please click HERE)
“Chris Wray is extremely intelligent, very principled, very hardworking,” said a former colleague of President Donald Trump’s FBI director nominee in an interview with The Daily Signal.
John Malcom, The Heritage Foundation’s vice president of the Institute for Constitutional Government and Wray’s former colleague, said Wray is a good fit for the job.
I will be nominating Christopher A. Wray, a man of impeccable credentials, to be the new Director of the FBI. Details to follow.
Wray and Malcolm worked together in the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division in the early 2000s.
“I have known Chris Wray for a very long time. … He was my boss … for about nine months in 2003 to early 2004. But I’ve known Chris Wray since the mid-nineties,” Malcolm told The Daily Signal.
Wray began working for the Department of Justice in 2001 and eventually served as an associate deputy attorney general, principal associate deputy attorney general, and assistant attorney general of the Criminal Division.
Malcom said Wray was a “protege” of Larry Thompson, the then-deputy attorney general, at the Department of Justice. When the then-head of the Criminal Division, Michael Chertoff, left in 2003, Wray became head of the Criminal Division where Malcolm was the deputy assistant attorney general. Malcolm said he remained one of Wray’s deputies until Malcolm left the DOJ in March 2004.
“I’m quite confident [Chris Wray] realizes that the FBI is the nation’s chief law enforcement office … I have no doubt he will approach this new job, once he is confirmed, in a thoroughly professional, nonpartisan manner,” Malcolm said.
Malcolm said he was confident in Wray’s abilities to head the FBI.
“He will be a dedicated, fair-minded FBI director,” Malcolm said.
Wray currently works at the law firm King & Spalding and chairs its special matters and government investigations practice group. This group “represents companies, audit and special committees, and individuals in a variety of white-collar criminal and regulatory enforcement matters, parallel civil litigation, and internal corporate investigations,” according to the firm’s website.
The website also says that Wray was “integral” to the DOJ’s response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and received “the department’s highest award for public service and leadership.”
He previously clerked for former Judge J. Michael Luttig, who was “a prominent conservative on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals,” according to Politico. He graduated from Yale in 1989 and from Yale Law School in 1992. (For more from the author of “What a Former Colleague Thinks About Chris Wray Becoming FBI Director” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/3416310475_3e0625b8e4_b-2.jpg7681024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-07-11 21:41:402017-07-11 21:41:40What a Former Colleague Thinks About Chris Wray Becoming FBI Director
Restoring Liberty Editor’s note: The story below is not particularly surprising. Just look at the feds’ use of informants in other cases.
In Alaska, we have the 2011-2012 Schaeffer Cox case where Cox was constantly egged on to criminal acts – even threatened – by the exact same informant (Bill Fulton) who handcuffed a reporter at one of Joe Miller’s town halls in 2010. That was the incident that the national press suggested cost the election (in reality, it turned out to be massive voter fraud, as we discovered in subsequent ballot reviews). By the FBI’s own admission, that same informant was debriefed by the agency after the handcuffing incident.
Do you think this level of entrapment really accomplishes any legitimate public service? Should folk like Samy be locked up for decades after falling prey to such federal schemes? Why do you think feds are doing this?
It’s become a near-weekly occurrence. Somewhere in some state, the FBI will announce that they’ve foiled yet another terrorist plot and saved lives. However, as the data shows, the majority of these cases involve psychologically diminished patsies who’ve been entirely groomed, armed, and entrapped by FBI agents. Simply put, the FBI manufactures terror threats and then takes credit for stopping them.
But what happens when they take it too far? What happens if the FBI actually tells someone to conduct a mass shooting? Well, in Milwaukee, WI, we are seeing this unfold first hand.
A little over two years ago, Samy Mohamed Hamzeh, 25, found himself in the midst of an FBI sting. Little did he know that he was being groomed for terrorism by the same government who claims to fight terrorism.
Hamzeh was born in the U.S. but lived much of his childhood in Jordan before moving to Milwaukee when he was 19. For four years, Hamzeh lived an entirely normal life, until one day, he was contacted by people who wanted to radicalize him and give him weapons.
The group, entirely controlled by the FBI was plotting to shoot up the Humphrey Scottish Rite Masonic Center during an event.
In February of 2016, the FBI announced they had foiled a terror plot by a man who was planning to kill at least 30 people to “defend Islam.” Americans cheered, and everyone felt safer — the FBI had saved us from extremists once again.
For months, two corrupt FBI informants goaded Hamzeh into obtaining weapons. According to his attorneys, hundreds of hours of recorded conversations show the FBI pressed Hamzeh into getting these weapons and eventually began pushing him to carry out a mass shooting.
Despite the intense peer pressure from people pretending that they were mass murderers, Hamzeh resisted. He didn’t even want the guns. Now, his attorneys have filed a motion to get him released on bond because they say he’s been set up.
The informants, the motion states, “frequently lobbied Hamzeh to get a machine gun despite his repeated protests that all he wanted was a legal handgun to protect himself.”
In spite of the FBI claiming Hamzeh was going to carry out a mass shooting — they were attempting to force him to do — the recordings, according to his attorneys, show he resisted and adamantly refused to ever participate in violence.
Even after the FBI announced their foiled terror plot, they were unable to charge Hamzeh with anything other than possessing a machine gun and a silencer. And even these items had been essentially shoved into his lap by the FBI.
As the Journal-Sentinel reports, a psychiatrist who evaluated Hamzeh in jail concluded he does not fit a profile of someone who would kill strangers and “has a strong moral code with a very prominent conscience and empathy.”
“There is also no evidence that Hamzeh ever made any plans or was doing anything other than making empty boasts to express his resentment about Israel or to gain attention,” reads their brief in support of the bond motion.
Hamzeh has now been in jail for a year and a half because the FBI tried to make him carry out a mass shooting that he didn’t want to do. And, he could be there much longer as each of the charges for the weapons — that he also did not want — carry 10 years a piece.
If Hamzeh never had any intention of carrying out a terror attack and the weapons were forced on him by the FBI, why on Earth would this be on the news and touted as some foiled plot?
Well, the answer to that is simple.
Former FBI assistant director Thomas Fuentes actually reveals the answer as he defends the tactics used by the FBI to set up poverty-stricken men by offering them large sums of money and weapons to commit crimes.
After he defended the FBI’s role in bribing poor, mentally diminished people to get them to commit crimes, he let out a bombshell statement, confirming what many of us already know.
“If you’re submitting budget proposals for a law enforcement agency, for an intelligence agency, you’re not going to submit the proposal that ‘We won the war on terror and everything’s great,’ cause the first thing that’s gonna happen is your budget’s gonna be cut in half,” states Fuentes. “You know, it’s my opposite of Jesse Jackson’s ‘Keep Hope Alive’—it’s ‘Keep Fear Alive.’ Keep it alive.”
There you have it. The FBI puts Americans in danger by grooming otherwise entirely innocent people into doing harm — so they can keep fear alive.
But what would’ve happened if Hamzeh would’ve actually carried out this shooting that the FBI was trying to force on him? Would the FBI still claim they had informants attempting to groom him? Would they admit to forcing him to accept weapons?
David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps intelligence officer, the second-highest-ranking civilian in the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer, had this to say about these most unscrupulous operations:
Most terrorists are false flag terrorists, or are created by our own security services. In the United States, every single terrorist incident we have had has been a false flag, or has been an informant pushed on by the FBI. In fact, we now have citizens taking out restraining orders against FBI informants that are trying to incite terrorism. We’ve become a lunatic asylum.
Indeed, we’ve become a lunatic asylum.
(For more from the author of “Recordings Reveal FBI Gave Man a Rifle, Urged Him to Carry out Mass Shooting to ‘Defend Islam'” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Flag_of_the_Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation-1-1.png12002000Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-07-07 00:10:392017-07-08 21:12:51Recordings Reveal FBI Gave Man a Rifle, Urged Him to Carry out Mass Shooting to ‘Defend Islam’
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)
While the general public is still in the dark about the arrival of biometric identification that is taking place in nearly every walk of life, even privacy defenders who have been closely following these developments don’t have sufficient information.
A shocking report came to light early this year about a massive FBI database that has been collecting millions of faceprints of American citizens – for years.
Known as the Next Generation Identification system, since 2014 the FBI has amassed more than 50 million images scoured from facial recognition alone; and, as reported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the images have merged into the FBI’s legacy database of fingerprints and other identifiers to create a centralized hub of surveillance:
NGI builds on the FBI’s legacy fingerprint database—which already contains well over 100 million individual records—and has been designed to include multiple forms of biometric data, including palm prints and iris scans in addition to fingerprints and face recognition data. NGI combines all these forms of data in each individual’s file, linking them to personal and biographic data like name, home address, ID number, immigration status, age, race, etc. This immense database is shared with other federal agencies and with the approximately 18,000 tribal, state and local law enforcement agencies across the United States.
Despite what is clearly a sweeping program of surveillance and a violation of numerous Amendments to the Constitution, the FBI has resisted all inquiries made by privacy organizations and even the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Now one of the most respected privacy defenders, EPIC, is urging Congress to do its job and fully examine the secret FBI program. EPIC summarized the scope of the program, as well as measures taken by the FBI to exempt itself from privacy protections:
EPIC has sent a statement to the House Appropriations Committee in advance of a hearing on the FBI’s budget. EPIC urged the Committee to examine the FBI’s Next Generation Identification program. EPIC explained that the program “raises far-reaching privacy issues that implicate the rights of Americans all across the country.” The FBI biometric database is one of the largest in the world, but the Bureau proposed to exempt the database from Privacy Act protections. EPIC and others supported strong safeguards for the program. In an early FOIA case against the FBI, EPIC obtained documents which revealed high error levels in the biometric database. EPIC has recently filed a FOIA lawsuit against the FBI for information about the agency’s plans to transfer biometric data to the Department of Defense.
The full statement from EPIC is posted below. As the use of biometrics is increasing by the day, it is essential that we help uncover the true scope of how this information is going to be used. Spread the word now and raise awareness so that we can ensure the best chance possible at resisting what appears to be the construction of a digital tyranny.
(For more from the author of “Privacy Organization Urges Congress to Examine FBI’s Secret Biometric ID Program” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/FaceMachine_screenshots_collage.jpg600600Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-06-21 22:42:512017-06-21 22:42:51Privacy Organization Urges Congress to Examine FBI’s Secret Biometric ID Program
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)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/FBI-HQ-Sign.jpg739631Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-06-20 22:24:202017-06-20 22:24:20FBI Making Big Announcement in GOP Baseball Shooting Investigation
Former FBI Director James Comey will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee [today] at 10 a.m. EST — but his just-released prepared testimony suggests what he will tell them. Democrats intend to ask him why President Trump fired him. They assert Trump fired him in order to shut down the FBI’s investigation into possible Trump campaign collusion with the Russians to influence the presidential election.
They are also expected to ask about Trump requesting that he shut down the FBI’s probe of former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn. Flynn resigned after it came out that he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about a conversation he’d had with the Russian ambassador. Democrats want to show that Trump engaged in obstruction of justice.
Trump’s Firing of Comey
Trump himself has contributed to the controversy. He has stated the reason he fired Comey was because he mishandled the probe of Hillary Clinton’s email server while she was secretary of state. He said that he based his decision to fire Comey on the recommendations of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein. He later said he had decided to fire Comey even before receiving their memo.
Comey announced on July 5 last year that he was recommending no prosecution of Clinton. Trump expressed his disappointment over Twitter.
FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges. Wow! #RiggedSystem
A few days before the election, when Comey announced the FBI was re-opening the probe into Clinton’s server, Trump responded that it “took guts.” In early May, before he was fired, Comey testified that it made him “mildly nauseous” to re-open the Clinton probe.
Comey’s Testimony is Already Out
The Senate Intelligence Committee released Comey’s prepared statement today. He allegedly asked for it to be released, according to NBC News.
In it, he describes how he met with Trump to provide him with information about Russian efforts to influence the election. He describes the material in the so-called Trump dossier as “salacious and unverified.” Critically, Comey confirms that he said several times his investigation did not target Trump himself.
Comey describes a conversation with Trump where he told Trump he was “not reliable” in the traditional political sense. He kept quiet after Trump said he needed loyalty, but later conceded he could provide “honest loyalty.”
The FBI is “an independent investigative agency,” he said, even though the president has full authority to appoint and fire its director.
During another private conversation with the president, Comey says the president urged him to drop the investigation into Flynn. Comey said he agreed with Trump that Flynn is “a good guy,” but did not respond to the request.
Comey says he did not think the president was asking him to drop the broader investigation of whether the Trump campaign had colluded with the Russians. He admits that he decided not to pass along Trump’s request to the team investigating Flynn. Instead, the investigation “moved ahead at full speed.”
After those conversations, Comey said he implored Sessions to stop the president from directly communicating with him. Sessions did not respond, and the communications continued. Comey, who is 6’8, once tried to blend in with dark blue curtains in the Blue Room during an event in order to avoid the president.
Comey has made provocative — or even reckless — statements while testifying in Congress. In March, he took the extraordinary step of publicly disclosing for the first time that the FBI was investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. He admitted the FBI only discloses its investigations in rare circumstances. There was a rumor that Trump was going to claim executive privilege to prohibit Comey from testifying, but that turned out to be false.
Senators to Watch Tomorrow
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He has run the committee in a collegial, bipartisan manner with the ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.). However, hinting at how valid he believes the accusations are of Russian interference with the election, Warner said that his work on the committee’s investigation is “probably the most important thing I’ve done in public life.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is the second-ranking Republican in the Senate and known for not holding back with grilling questions. Senators James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Roy Blount (R-Mo.) can also be expected to ask some piercing questions. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), as the most well-known senator on the committee, will probably steal much of the show.
The testimony will be aired on C-SPAN 3, which can be viewed online. Other cable outlets are also expected to broadcast the testimony with all the pomp and enthusiasm reserved for the Oscars.
(For more from the author of “What to Expect During Comey’s Congressional Testimony” please click HERE)
