Reader comments are driving my newsletter today. It seems appropriate to use this perfectly-timed letter from reader Lawrence to introduce today’s unsettling FBI news….
Governor Mike,
Re the FBI spying. It's de rigeur for politicians to praise the FBI, and say "only a few" agents have gone off the rails. How quickly we forget! The FBI has a long history of political activity and abuse of citizens. The FBI HQ building in Washington is named for one of the most shameful characters to ever be in government, J. Edgar Hoover.
And, having worked with the FBI numerous times over the course of an almost 54-year career in the Defense Department, I can tell you they are not always the sharpest knife in the drawer. I've seen more than one DOD operation or investigation torpedoed by the FBI because they had congressional testimony coming up and wanted what we called a B4 (Bureau budget boosting bust) to brag about before Congress. I think we need to abolish the FBI, start over with a new law enforcement agency that has rigorous congressional controls. The agents that work for the FBI now could apply for jobs and be given hiring priority at the new agency, provided they are cleared of any political actions while working for the FBI.
Dear Lawrence:
That idea is sounding better and better all the time. You (and all our readers) might appreciate the following story about the FBI’s “investigation” of Hillary’s email that, if confirmed, illustrates your point very well…
A report from May 8 in The Epoch Times alleges that according to a former intelligence official, the FBI conveniently “LOST” notes that documented some particularly explosive information about Hillary’s emails, as discussed during a meeting or meetings between their staff and the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG). According to the source, this meeting was held less than a month after the ICIG had made a referral to the FBI that classified material “may have been disclosed in an unauthorized manner to a foreign power” because Hillary Clinton conducted State Department business over an insufficiently secure private email server. But in this new meeting, the ICIG went further, passing along a specific lead that “anomalies in the metadata” of the emails examined indicated that a copy of nearly every email was indeed sent to an agent of a foreign power.
The Epoch Times’ source told them that the ICIG had found in “the actual metadata --- the data which is at the header and footer of all the emails --- that a copy, a ‘courtesy copy,’ was being sent to a third party and that third party was a known Chinese public company that was involved in collecting intelligence for China.” The source said this anomaly was found “pretty early in 2015,” and sources for The Daily Caller also said that the FBI was briefed on the matter three separate occasions. So, where are the records of such a blockbuster disclosure?
In the past, the FBI has acknowledged that Hillary’s emails “could have been breached by foreign actors who covered their tracks, but denied that any evidence of foreign infiltration was found,” the story reads. “Several current and former senior FBI officials involved in the Clinton case denied in congressional testimonies any recollection of receiving the metadata lead.”
GOSH, It would be REALLY NICE to have the notes from that meeting, but they appear to be “lost.” We know this because of references to this boo-boo that appeared in some emails released by the FBI (with all names redacted) around May 6. Emails dated February 4 reflect that special agents from the Washington field office were going through some documents from the Clinton email investigation –-- sorry, “investigation” –- so they could be released in response to a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request. When they searched for the meeting notes, which according to their electronic case file management system should have been in Hillary’s case file, those notes were gone baby gone.
And they stayed gone. To quote the story: “A February 12 document shows that the Washington Field Office considered the meeting notes missing, as the special agent who was to receive the notes from the staffer said he ‘documented all relevant case materials before leaving the case and DID NOT RETAIN ANY NOTES OR OTHER CASE MATERIALS.’” (Emphasis mine.)
Read the full story at the link. (i’ve also added the link to a story Laura Ainsworth contributed a while back, dealing with “the long, proud history of FBI spying.” Sad to say, it’s more timely than ever.) Lawrence, I imagine you consider this new story to be par for the course when it comes to the FBI. The new AG, Bill Barr, gives reason for hope, however, because if anyone’s a straight-shooter, he is, and he seems to know just what he’s dealing with. Also, we should never forget that the reason we’re finding out about these misdeeds now is that there are dedicated agents and former agents who are sickened by what they have seen in the intelligence community. That said, it sure look as though Hillary wasn’t the only one destroying evidence in the Hillary email case.
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RELATED READING: "THE FBI'S LONG, STORIED HISTORY OF SPYING"
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