By Capt Joseph R. John: Op Ed # 381
The below listed speech was given on January 25, 2018 at Hillsdale College by Joseph E. DiGenova, Esq., the former US Attorney for the District of Columbia, a former Independent Counsel of the United States, the former Special Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, the former Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, and the former Counsel to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (the Church Committee). In his speech, Attorney DiGenova exposed a federal criminal conspiracy, by political appointees of the Obama administration, designed to remove the President of the United States from office.
The disgraced former FBI Director James Comey, with his seventh floor FBI Headquarters compromised political henchmen, with the support of former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, collectively perpetrated a plot to take down the President which has proved to be a great disservice to the reputation of the dedicated men and women of the FBI, and negatively affected the stellar reputation of America’s premier federal law enforcement agency, the FBI.
James Comey not only leaked classified information to the New York Times for publication, he negatively affected the reputation of the FBI by his misleading and shocking pronouncements that had no basis in law, during two press conferences just prior to the 2016 national elections. Comey further demonstrated his gross dereliction of duty, by not utilizing the well -known essential prosecutorial tools at the disposal of the FBI, to pursue multiple criminal acts the negatively affected of national security of the United States.
The repeated violations of the national security of the United States was the result of Hillary Clinton’s unauthorized destruction of 30,000 highly sensitive and classified US State Department messages that were being transmitted on the unclassified server in Hillary Clinton’s home. Comey also violated a number of legal rules and procedures, that prosecutors consider sacrosanct; they are outlined in the below listed presentation by Attorney DiGenova.
For the first time in 242 years, a sinister plot was hatched to remove the President of the United States from office, by former FBI Director James Comey, former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI Deputy Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok, Strzok’s mistress and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, former FBI General Counsel James Baker, DOJ senior official Bruce Ohr & his wife, former CIA Director John Brennan, rogue political appointees in US Intelligence Agencies, and other corrupt members of the Obama administration in their attempt to pull off a political coup, in violation of the rule of law, and the US Constitution.
The sinister plot to remove the US President from office included the creation of an unverified fake Dossier, which Hillary Clinton and the Democrat National Committee paid $12 million for, it was to be used to try to prove that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the Presidential election. The charge that Donald Trump colluded with Russia has continued unabated, for over 20 months, and there is still absolutely not one shred of proof that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the Presidential election.
What did actually happen, was that Hillary Clinton, the Democrat National Committee (DNC), and the aforementioned political appointees in the Justice Department, Intelligence Agencies, and Comey’s politicalized FBI Headquarter group, were aware that Christopher Steele, a British citizen, was paid to work with Russian Intelligence Agencies to develop the fake Steele Dossier.
Without telling 3 FISA Judges that Hillary and the DNC paid $12 million to create the fake Steele Dossier with the help of Foreign nationals in Russia and England, Comey had his henchmen present the unverified Steele Dossier was presented as uncorroborated evidence to 3 FISA Judges, in order to obtain FISA Warrants, authorizing the surveillance of the Trump Campaign and the Trump Tower.
The use by Hillary and the DNC to employ foreigner nationals from England and Russia, was in violation of US Federal Election Laws. The content of the Steele Dossier were systematically leaked by Obama political appointees in the US Intelligence Agencies and the left of center liberal media establishment.
According to former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, he stated that none of the salacious and false claim in the Steele Dossier, about Donald Trump, were ever verified by the FBI, before the Steele Dossier was used as the basis to obtain FISA Warrant to spy on the Trump Campaign.
A step by step case of treason is laid out by former Federal Attorney Joseph E. DiGenova in the transcript of his below listed speech. A Grand Jury probe and appointment of a Special Counsel is long overdue. A Grand Jury must be impaneled to consider the case as laid out below, and a Special Counsel must be appointed with subpoena powers to prosecute this case of treason against the United States by former members of the Obama administration and Comey’s henchmen.
Copyright by Capt Joseph R. John. All Rights Reserved. The material can only posted on another Web site or distributed on the Internet by giving full credit to the author. It may not be published, broadcast, or rewritten without the permission from the author
Joseph R. John, USNA ‘62
Capt USNR(Ret)/Former FBI
Chairman, Combat Veterans For Congress PAC
2307 Fenton Parkway, Suite 107-184
San Diego, CA 92108
Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
-Isaiah 6:8
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February 2018 • Volume 47, Number 2
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Joseph E. DiGenova, Esq. is a founding partner of DiGenova & Toensing, LLP.
He received his B.A. from the University of Cincinnati and his J.D. from Georgetown University.
He has served as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia,
Independent Counsel of the United States,
Special Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives,
Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, and
Counsel to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (the Church Committee).
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/The following is adapted from a speech delivered on January 25, 2018,
at Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional
Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C., as part of the AWC Family
Foundation Lecture Series. /
Over the past year, facts have emerged that suggest there was a plot by
high-ranking FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials in the Obama
administration, acting under color of law, to exonerate Hillary Clinton
of federal crimes and then, if she lost the election, to frame Donald
Trump and his campaign for colluding with Russia to steal the
presidency. This conduct was not based on mere bias, as has been widely
claimed, but rather on deeply felt animus toward Trump and his agenda.
In the course of this plot, FBI Director James Comey, U.S. Attorney
General Loretta Lynch, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, FBI Deputy
Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok, Strzok’s paramour and FBI
lawyer Lisa Page, FBI General Counsel James Baker, and DOJ senior
official Bruce Ohr—perhaps among others—compromised federal law
enforcement to such an extent that the American public is losing trust.
A recent CBS News poll finds 48 percent of Americans believe that
Special Counsel James Mueller’s Trump-Russia collusion probe is
“politically motivated,” a stunning conclusion. And 63 percent of polled
voters in a Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll believe that the FBI withheld vital
information from Congress about the Clinton and Russia collusion
investigations.
I spent my early legal career as a federal prosecutor. I later
supervised hundreds of prosecutors and prosecutions as a U.S. Attorney
and as an Independent Counsel. I have never witnessed investigations so
fraught with failure to fulfill the basic elements of a criminal probe
as those conducted under James Comey. Not since former Acting FBI
Director L. Patrick Gray deep-sixed evidence during Watergate has the
head of the FBI been so discredited as Comey is now.
The Case of the Clinton Emails
The Hillary Clinton email scandal began in 2013 with the U.S. House of
Representatives investigation into the attack on the American embassy in
Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012. It was during that investigation
that accessing Secretary of State Clinton’s emails became an issue. But
it wasn’t until /The New York Times/ broke the story on March 2, 2015,
that Clinton had a secret, personal server that things really took off.
Thousands of emails that the House at first requested, then subpoenaed,
conveniently disappeared—remember those reports about BleachBit and the
smashing of Clinton’s numerous phones with hammers? Clinton and her
aides were, to say the least, not forthcoming. It was clearly time for
the FBI and DOJ to act, using the legal tools at their disposal to
secure the emails and other materials the House had subpoenaed. But that
didn’t happen.
One tool at their disposal was the grand jury—the /sine qua non/ of a
criminal investigation. Grand juries are comprised of 16 to 23 citizens
who hear a prosecutor’s case against an alleged criminal. The subject of
the investigation is not present during the entire proceeding, which can
last up to a year. A grand jury provides investigators with the
authority to collect evidence by issuing subpoenas for documents and
witnesses. FBI agents and prosecutors cannot themselves demand evidence.
Only a grand jury can—or a court, in cases where a subpoena recipient
refuses a grand jury’s command to provide documents or to testify.
Incredibly, FBI Director Comey and Attorney General Lynch refused to
convene a grand jury during the Clinton investigation. Thus
investigators had no authority to subpoena evidence or witnesses.
Lacking leverage, Comey then injudiciously granted immunity to five
Clinton aides in return for evidence that could have been obtained with
a subpoena. Even when Clinton claimed 39 times during a July 2, 2016,
interview—an interview led by disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok—that she
could not recall certain facts because of a head injury, Comey refused
the case agents’ request to subpoena her medical records.
Comey claims he negotiated the immunity deals because of his concern
about time. Yet the investigation was opened in the summer of 2015,
nearly a year before he cut these deals. Compare this to the DOJ’s
handling of four-star Marine General James E. Cartwright, who pleaded
guilty in October 2016 to a false statement about leaking classified
information to /The New York Times/. In that case, the DOJ bragged about
its use of subpoenas and search warrants.
Not only was there no grand jury, the FBI never issued a search
warrant—something it does when there is concern a person will destroy
evidence. Clinton deleted half her emails and then claimed, under
penalty of perjury, that she had turned over to the government all
emails that “were or potentially were” work-related. The FBI later found
email chains classified as “secret” or “confidential” that she had not
turned over. Still no search warrant was issued.
Comey’s dereliction did not stop at the failure to utilize essential
prosecutorial tools. He violated several rules that prosecutors consider
sacrosanct:
§Comey allowed one lawyer to represent four material witnesses, an
arrangement ripe for the four to coordinate testimony.
§After needlessly giving immunity to two lawyers representing Clinton,
Comey permitted both to sit in on her July 2, 2016, FBI interview—a
patent conflict. He claimed he could not control who sat in on the
“voluntary” interview. That’s nonsense. He could have convened a grand
jury, subpoenaed Clinton, and compelled her to appear and be questioned
without a lawyer or else plead the Fifth Amendment.
§Comey authorized the destruction of laptop computers that belonged to
Clinton’s aides and were under congressional subpoena.
§Comey ignored blatant evidence of culpability. It is ridiculous to the
general public and risible to those who have security clearances for
Clinton to claim she thought that “(c)” placed after paragraphs in her
emails meant the material was in alphabetical order rather than meaning
it was classified. If she thought (c) indicated alphabetical order,
where were (a) and (b) on the documents? Clinton and her supporters
touted her vast experience as a U.S. Senator and Secretary of State,
positions requiring frequent use of classified information and
presumably common sense. Yet neither experience nor common sense
informed her decisions when handling classified materials.
§Comey and the FBI never questioned Clinton about her public statements,
which changed over time and were blatantly false. “I did not email
classified information to anyone” morphed into “I did not email anything
marked ‘classified,’” which morphed into the claim that (c) did not mean
what it clearly meant. False and changing statements are presented to
juries routinely by prosecutors as evidence of guilt.
§Breaking DOJ protocols, violating the chain of command, and assuming an
authority he never had, Comey usurped the role of the U.S. attorney
general on July 5, 2016, when he announced that the case against Clinton
was closed. He justified his actions saying that he no longer trusted
Attorney General Lynch after her June 27, 2016, meeting with Bill
Clinton on the tarmac at the Phoenix airport. This meeting took place at
the height of the so-called investigation—just days before Peter Strzok
interviewed Clinton on July 2. Thanks to the efforts of Judicial Watch
to secure documents through the Freedom of Information Act, we now know
that Comey was already drafting a letter exonerating Clinton in May
2016—prior to interviewing more than a dozen major witnesses. We also
know that the FBI’s reaction to the impropriety of the tarmac meeting
was not disgust, but rather anger at the person who leaked the fact of
the meeting. “We need to find that guy” and bring him before a
supervisor, stated one (name redacted) FBI agent. Another argued that
the source should be banned from working security details. Not one email
expressed concern over the meeting. An FBI director who truly had his
trust shaken would have questioned the members of Lynch’s FBI security
detail for the Arizona trip about how the meeting came to be. Comey
didn’t bother.
Comey described Clinton’s handling of classified information as
“extremely careless,” a clumsy attempt to avoid the legal language of
“gross negligence” for /criminal/ mishandling of classified
information—and we later learned that Peter Strzok, again, was
responsible for editing this language in Comey’s statement. But
practically speaking, the terms are synonymous. Any judge would instruct
a jury to consider “gross negligence” as “extremely careless” conduct.
Comey claimed that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring the case
against Clinton. I have spent many years investigating federal crimes,
and I can tell you that a reasonable prosecutor would have utilized a
grand jury, issued subpoenas and search warrants, and followed standard
DOJ procedures for federal prosecutions. In short, Comey threw the case.
He should have been fired long before he was.
In late spring 2016, just weeks prior to Comey’s July 5 press conference
clearing Clinton of any crime, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe ordered
FBI agents in New York to shut down their investigation into the Clinton
Foundation. Their objections were overruled. Sources have told me that
McCabe also shut down an additional Clinton investigation. This is the
McCabe who, while he was overseeing the Clinton email investigation, had
a wife running for the Virginia State Senate and receiving more than
$460,000 in campaign contributions from a longtime Clinton loyalist,
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe. Moreover, it was only after the news
of Clinton’s private server became public in /The New York Times/ that
McAuliffe recruited McCabe’s wife to run for office. McCabe eventually
recused himself from the Clinton probe, but that was one week before the
2016 election, after the decisions to clear Clinton and to pursue the
Trump-Russia collusion investigation had already been made. So his
recusal was meaningless.
In clearing legal impediments from Clinton’s path to the Democratic
nomination, Comey and his senior staff thought they had helped Clinton
clinch the presidency. Their actions put an end to a decades-long
tradition of non-political federal law enforcement.
The Case of Trump-Russia Collusion
Rumors of collusion with Russia by Trump or the Trump campaign surfaced
during the primaries in 2015, but gained in strength soon after Trump
secured the Republican nomination in July 2016. Thanks to DOJ Inspector
General Michael Horowitz, we now know that high-level FBI officials were
involved in promoting these rumors. Among Horowitz’s discoveries were
text messages between FBI Deputy Director of Counterintelligence Peter
Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page that suggest an illegal plan to utilize
law enforcement to frame Trump. The most revealing exchange we know of
took place on August 15, 2016. Concerned about the outcome of the
election, Strzok wrote:
I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in [Andrew
McCabe’s] office—that there’s no way [Trump] 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.
No amount of sugar coating or /post hoc/ explanation of this and other
texts can conceal the couple’s animus against Trump and support for
Clinton. Strzok’s messages illustrate his commitment to Clinton’s
victory and Trump’s defeat or, if Trump won, to an “insurance policy.”
The term “insurance policy” obviously refers to the Trump-Russia
collusion investigation, which to this day remains a probe with no
underlying crime. This is not the talk of professional investigators,
but of corrupt agents who have created two standards of justice based on
their political leanings. It looks like a reprise of the schemes
undertaken during an earlier era, under FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover,
that led to the creation of the Church Committee—a committee on which I
served, and which tried to reform the FBI to prevent it from meddling in
domestic politics.
At the heart of the Russia collusion scheme is the FBI’s utilization of
a document paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National
Committee. Called the Steele Dossier because it was written by former
British MI6 officer Christopher Steele, this document contains
unsubstantiated information designed to taint Trump and his presidency.
While Clinton partisans point out that candidate Clinton never referred
to the Steele Dossier in her speeches, the fact is that she did not have
to—the FBI hierarchy was doing it for her! Indeed, FBI General Counsel
James Baker was recently reassigned because of his having leaked
information about the Steele Dossier to the magazine /Mother Jones/.
Not one claim concerning Trump in the Steele Dossier has ever been
verified by the FBI, according to Andrew McCabe himself in recent
testimony to the House Intelligence Committee. The only confirmed fact
is unsurprising: former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page traveled to
Moscow on his own dime and met with various Russians—all perfectly legal.
Comey and then-CIA Director John Brennan laundered the Steele Dossier
through the U.S. intelligence community to give it an aura of
credibility and get it to the press. It was also used by the FBI and
senior DOJ officials to secure wiretap warrants from a secret Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. Then its contents, via
court-authorized FISA warrants, were used to justify the illegal
unmasking of the identities of wiretapped Trump officials. The contents
of these National Security Agency intercepts were put on spreadsheets
and presented to members of President Obama’s National Security Council
(NSC)—specifically Susan Rice and Ben Rhodes—and subsequently leaked to
the press. According to former NSC staff, President Obama himself read
the FISA intercepts of Trump campaign personnel. Unsurprisingly, there
was no request for a leak investigation from either the FBI or the DOJ.
In sum, the FBI and DOJ employed unverified salacious allegations
contained in a political opposition research document to obtain
court-sanctioned wiretaps, and then leaked the contents of the wiretaps
and the identities of political opponents. This was a complex criminal
plot worthy of Jason Bourne.
The Pall Over the Special Counsel and the FBI
Layered over this debacle is a special counsel investigation unfettered
by rules or law. Not surprisingly, James Comey triggered the special
counsel’s appointment—and he did so by design. According to Comey’s
testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, having been fired on May
9, 2017, he leaked official documents to his friend, Columbia Law School
professor Daniel Richman, with the specific intent that Richman would
leak them to the press. Reportage on that leak is what led Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to appoint Robert Mueller—a former FBI
director and Comey’s good friend—as special counsel to investigate
allegations of Trump-Russia collusion.
Mueller’s reputation has been damaged by a series of decisions that
violate the ethical rules of appearances. For instance, he hired
Democratic partisans as lawyers for the probe: Andrew Weissmann, who
donated to Clinton and praised Acting Attorney General Sally Yates for
disobeying Trump’s lawful Presidential Order regarding a travel ban for
residents of certain nations that harbor terrorists; Jeannie Rhee, who
donated to Clinton and represented Ben Rhodes in the email probe and the
Clinton Foundation investigation; and Aaron Zebley, who represented
Clinton IT staffer Justin Cooper in the email server probe.
Mueller also staged a pre-dawn raid with weapons drawn on the home of
Paul Manafort, rousing Manafort and his wife from their bed—a tactic
customarily reserved for terrorists and drug dealers. Manafort has
subsequently been indicted for financial crimes that antedate his
campaign work for Trump and that have nothing to do with Russia collusion.
Then there’s the fact that when Mueller removed Strzok from the
investigation in July 2017, he didn’t tell anyone. The removal and its
causes were uncovered by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Why was
such vital information concealed from the public? It is not, as is often
claimed now, that Strzok was a minor figure. All the major decisions
regarding both the Clinton and the Trump-Russia collusion investigations
had been made under Strzok.
Significantly, Strzok also led the interview of General Michael Flynn
that ended in Flynn pleading guilty to making false statements to the
FBI. It is important to recall that Flynn’s FBI interview was not
conducted under the authority of the special counsel, but under that of
Comey and McCabe. It took place during Inauguration week in January
2017. Flynn had met with the same agents the day before regarding
security clearances. McCabe called Flynn and asked if agents could come
to the White House. Flynn agreed, assuming it was about personnel. It
was not.
Flynn had been overheard on a FISA wiretap talking to Russia’s
Ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak. There was nothing
criminal or even unusual about the fact of such discussion. Flynn was on
the Trump transition team and was a federal employee as the
President-Elect’s national security advisor. It was his job to be
talking to foreign leaders. Flynn was not charged with regard to
anything said during his conversation with Kislyak. So why was the FBI
interrogating Flynn about legal conduct? What more did the FBI need to
know? I am told by sources that when Flynn’s indictment was announced,
McCabe was on a video conference call—cheering!
Compare the FBI’s treatment of Flynn to its treatment of Paul Combetta,
the technician who used a program called BleachBit to destroy thousands
of emails on Hillary Clinton’s computer. This destruction of evidence
took place after a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives issued
letters directing that all emails be preserved and subpoenaing them.
Combetta first lied to the FBI, claiming he did not recall deleting
anything. After being rewarded with immunity, Combetta recalled
destroying the emails—but he could not recall anyone directing him to do so.
The word in Washington is that Flynn pleaded guilty to take pressure off
his son, who was also a subject of Mueller’s investigation. Always the
soldier. But those who questioned Flynn that day did not cover
themselves with law enforcement glory. Led by Strzok, they grilled Flynn
about facts that they already knew and that they knew did not constitute
a crime. They besmirched the reputation of federal law enforcement by
their role in a scheme to destroy a duly elected president and his
appointees.
A pall hangs over Mueller, and a pall hangs over the DOJ. But the
darkest pall hangs over the FBI, America’s premier federal law
enforcement agency, which since the demise of J. Edgar Hoover has been
steadfast in steering clear of politics. Even during L. Patrick Gray’s
brief tenure as acting director during Watergate, it was not the FBI but
Gray personally who was implicated. The current scandal pervades the
Bureau. It spans from Director Comey to Deputy Director McCabe to
General Counsel Baker. It spread to counterintelligence via Peter
Strzok. When line agents complained about the misconduct, McCabe
retaliated by placing them under investigation for leaking information.
From the outset of this scandal, I have considered Comey a dirty cop.
His unfailing commitment to himself above all else is of a pattern.
Throughout his career, Comey has continually portrayed himself as Thomas
Becket, fighting against institutional corruption—even where none
exists. Stories abound of his routine retort to anyone who disagreed
with him (not an unusual happening when lawyers gather) during his
tenure as deputy attorney general under President George W. Bush. “Your
moral compass is askew,” he would say. This self-righteousness led
agents to refer to him as “The Cardinal.” Comey is no Thomas Becket—he
is Henry II.
A great disservice has been done to the dedicated men and women of the
FBI by Comey and his seventh floor henchmen. A grand jury probe is long
overdue. Inspector General Horowitz is an honest man, but he cannot
convene a grand jury. We need one now. We need our FBI back.
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